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ANDORRA 

THE HIDDEN 
REPUBLIC 




THE VALLEY OF ANDORRA 



ANDORRA 

THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

ITS ORIGIN AND INSTITUTIONS, AND 
THE RECORD OF A JOURNEY THITHER 



^wsmEw* 




BY 



LEWIS GASTON LEARY 

AUTHOR OF 
"THE REAL PALESTINE OF TO-DAY." ETC. 



NEW YORK : 19 12 
MCBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 



Copyright, 1912, by 
McBride, Nast & Co. 



1* 



Published, May, 1919 



£c:.A3I49i)8 



^ 
^ 



TO MY FIRST AND BEST 
TRAVELING COMPANION 

MY FATHER 



"Separated from the rest of the 
world by impenetrable rocks; a stranger 
to science, art, commerce and industry ; 
viewing no spectacle but Nature, know- 
ing no lord and master but God." 

Victorin Vidal 



PREFACE 

Andorra is surrounded by some of the most 
magnificent mountain scenery in all Europe, 
yet the strange little valley is almost un- 
visited; and although the ancient republic 
possesses a unique historic and political inter- 
est, hardly any reliable information concern- 
ing this last lonely survival of mediaeval days 
has hitherto been accessible to the English 
reader. 

What little has been written about Andorra 
in English is, almost without exception, super- 
ficial and inaccurate. This might be excusable 
in a brief chapter of some light description of 
summer travel in the Pyrenees; but most of 
the larger encyclopaedias, to which the general 
reader naturally first turns for information 
about this out-of-the-way corner of Europe, 
are also confused and self -contradictory. For 
instance, one well-known work, under the three 
captions Charlemagne, Catalonia and Spain, 
actually gives no fewer than three different 
dates for the same event in the early history 
of the Republic. 

vii 



PREFACE 

I have been able to find only two English 
works bearing the marks of conscientious 
scholarship: The Valley of Andorra, a brief 
monograph of sixty-six small pages, careful 
and exact and intentionally devoid of literary 
qualities, which was privately printed in 1882 
by the late W. A. Tucker; and Through the 
High Pyrenees, by Harold Spender and H. 
Llewellyn Smith (London, 1898). The lat- 
ter very readable book contains three chapters 
on Andorra, besides a bibliography which is 
especially valuable for its references to articles 
in French periodicals. 

For those who read French, there is con- 
siderable material on the subject scattered 
through the files of the Revue des Pyrenees, 
the Annual of the French Alpine Club, and 
the Bulletins of the Societe Archeologique du 
Midi de la France, and the Societe de Geo- 
graphic de Toulouse, besides such specific 
works on Andorra as those by Blade, Vilar 
and Vidal, and Ch. Baudon de Mony's Rela- 
tions Politiques des Comtes de Foix avec la 
Catalogne, in whose second volume of Pieces 
Justicatives are collected the ancient docu- 
ments which form the basis for any first-hand 
investigation of early Andorran history. 

viii 



PREFACE 



On the border between France and Spain, 
where within the area of an American county 
are spoken French, Spanish and half a dozen 
dialects of Provencal and Catalan, and where 
a large proportion of the mountaineers are 
illiterate, it is not surprising that there is no 
unanimity of opinion regarding the pronuncia- 
tion of geographical names. As for their 
spelling, hardly any two authorities agree. I 
have found the name of the capital, "Andorra 
the Old," written with and without the article, 
and with the adjective spelled Telia, Viella, 
Vieilla, V telle, Vieja and Viega. For the sake 
of attaining some degree of uniformity, I have, 
as a rule, followed the spelling of the French 
government map, though even this carefully 
prepared publication has not escaped the criti- 
cism of local authorities. In the case of 
proper names other than those of places, I 
have preferred the Catalan, rather than the 
French form. 

The translation of the difficult mediaeval 
Latin of the Concordat of 1278 has been made 
by my brother, Russel W. Leary, M.A., 
LL.B. I believe that this is the first publica- 
tion in English of the oldest international 
agreement whose provisions are still in force. 

ix 



PREFACE 



The only other translation which I have seen 
is in a French doctorate thesis by Andre Vilar, 
and this is hardly more than a free paraphrase, 
which glosses over many of the obscure terms 
of feudal law. 

With few exceptions, the accompanying 
illustrations are from photographs taken last 
summer by my traveling companion, Rev. 
Benjamin T. Marshall, and myself. 

In the rapid discussion of conflicting feudal 
claims concerning which the most learned mod- 
ern French scholars differ, and which in cen- 
turies gone by were not settled without strife 
and bloodshed, I have not attempted to qualify 
statements and amplify arguments so as en- 
tirely to forestall possible criticism. I hold 
no brief for either side in the thousand-vear- 

mi 

long debate between Church and State. My 
one hope is that this story of the little Republic 
of the Pyrenees may not be without interest 
to the readers who dwell in the great, new Re- 
public of the western world, and may perhaps 
inspire in them something of the same respect 
and affection which I myself feel toward the 
sturdy citizens of Andorra. 

Lewis Gaston Leary. 

Pelham Manor, N. Y., 
March 4, 1912. 

x 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface i 

I The Vale of Endor ........ 1 

II Counts and Bishop9 11 

III The Rock of Foix 32 

IV In the Shadow of the Pyrenees . . 45 
V Following the Ariege . . . . . .58 

VI The Hidden Valley 75 

VII The Silent People ...... 95 

VIII The House of the Valley . . . .108 

IX Twentieth Century Feudalism . . .119 

X A Miniature Republic 145 

XI Feasting and Gladness 157 

XII The New Road . 167 

APPENDICES 

I The Counts of Foix . . . . ^. .173 

II The Concordat of 1278 . . . . .176 

Index , : . M m ... 189 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Coat-of-arms of Andorra . . . Cover design 
The Valley of Andorra Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

In the Parish of Encamp 8 

The City and Castle of Foix 32 ^ 

A Street in Foix . . 38 " 

The Concierge of the Castle of Foix .... 42 

Ax-les-Thermes — the Church of St. Vincent . . 48 

Ax-les-Thermes — the Oriege River 52 

Ax-les-Thermes — General View 54 

Spanish Laborers .... . . . . . . 58 

Diligence at Merens . . . ...... 60 

L'Hospitalet 64 

The Ariege River above L'Hospitalet ... 66 

The Mountain Bulwarks of Andorra . . . .70 

The Source of the Ariege 74 

The Summit of the Embalire Pass 78 " 



W 



An old Bridge over the Valira ...... 80 

A Typical Andorran Village 84 

The Church of San Juan de Canillo .... 86 

■ 
A Cascade near Soldeu 90 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Las Escaldas 92 

Dr. Pla and his key 98 

Patriarchs of the Valley . 98 

Citizens of Las Escaldas 100 

Andorran Peasants . . 104 * 

Andorra la Vella — General view 108 

Andorra la Vella — the Public Square . . . .110 

J 
The House of the Valley . . . . 4 . .112 

The Council Chamber 114 

Entrance to the Capitol 116 

Andorra la Vella from the south 118 

The Bishop and General Council 122 

San Julia de Loria 128 

Andorran Women 160 

Dancing at Las Escaldas 164 

SKETCH MAPS 

PAGE 

The Border between France and Spain ... 7 

The Republic of Andorra 76 

Railways of the Eastern Pyrenees 170 



ANDORRA 

THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 



THE VALE OF ENDOR 

JUST as we reached the summit of the pass, 
the intense summer heat was tempered by 
a cool, damp breeze which blew down from the 
snow-drifts on the Peak of the Black Foun- 
tain, and a soft, mistlike rain fell, while we 
bared our heads, the better to feel the grateful 
drops. But soon black, angry clouds settled 
down over all the mountains around us, and 
low but incessant thunder growled back and 
forth between the precipices. 

Then, suddenly the storm burst upon us. 
This was no gentle dripping of pleasant cool- 
ness, but beating, roaring, heart-chilling sheets 
of almost solid water. In a moment we were 
drenched to the skin. In five minutes the 
bridle-path was a veritable torrent, and we 
had to dismount, and lead our horses down the 

[i] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

pass. Mountain-bred as they were, they stum- 
bled dangerously over the slippery stones and 
still more treacherous grass. We too slipped 
and stumbled, ankle-deep in ice-water and 
greasy mud. Our teeth chattered, and the 
cold penetrated to our very bones. 

That hour of the Pyrenean tempest : shall I 
ever forget it? So wet and weary and freez- 
ing cold it was, and yet so happy; for all the 
while, deep down thousands of feet below us, I 
could see the bright, warm sunlight shining into 
one of the most beautiful valleys in the world. 
After years of planning and disappointment, 
the moment to which I had so long looked for- 
ward had at last arrived. Yonder, in the 
golden glory that broke between the black 
storm-clouds which shrouded her mountain 
ramparts, lay sheltered the strangest, least- 
known country in Europe — the hidden Re- 
public of Andorra! 

The story of the Pyrenean valley begins just 
twelve hundred years ago, in the early days of 
that fearful eighth century, when the dread 
crescent of Moslem conquest touched Persia 
on the east and swung its western tip far across 
the fair land of Spain. 

[2] 



THE VALE OF ENDOR 



The Visigoths had ruled Iberia for nearly 
three hundred years; and their rude, hard 
barbarism, before which the outposts of a 
decadent empire had once gone down like 
breastworks of straw, was now, in its turn, 
corrupted and enervated by luxury, until the 
Gothic barons were as weak as had been the 
Roman nobles whom they supplanted. Then 
it was that their own governor of Ceuta, Count 
Julian, moved it is said by the memory of a 
cruel wrong done to his family, turned traitor 
to the Christian cause and, with craftily woven 
tales of the wealth and unpreparedness of the 
provinces of Spain, tempted the Moorish lead- 
ers who were already waiting so eagerly on the 
African shores just across the strait. 

It was a recent convert to Mohammedan- 
ism, the Berber chief Ibn Ziad Tarik, who 
led the main invading force. On the fateful 
thirtieth day of April, in the year 711, he 
crossed from Morocco to Spain and landed at 
the strongest natural fortress in the world, 
which has ever since been called after him, 
"the Mountain of Tarik" — Jebel Tarik or, as 
we pronounce it, "Gibraltar." 

Three months later, Visigoths and Moors 
met in decisive battle at Jerez de la Frontera, 

m 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

by the river Guadalete, fourteen miles north- 
east of Cadiz. The army of King Roderic is 
said to have outnumbered that of Tarik four 
to one; but the Spanish soldiers were ill- 
treated, half-hearted serfs, commanded by of- 
ficers the best of whom were dissolute and the 
worst, treacherous ; while their adversaries were 
seasoned warriors, inspirited by a long succes- 
sion of easy victories, and led by a general of 
rare ability and heroic character. There could 
be only one outcome. Yet the battle waged 
fiercely during seven long days; for the Goths 
performed many deeds of valor, and Roderic, 
with all his faults, proved a wise and coura- 
geous commander. Then shameful desertions 
drained the strength of the Christian army, 
and at last the broken-hearted king 

" — looked for the brave captains that led the hosts of 
Spain, 
But all were fled except the dead, and who could count 
the slain?" * 

What became of Roderic himself has ever 
since remained a fascinating mystery to the 
credulous Spanish peasantry. He was prob- 

i Lockhart, Spanish Ballads, "The Lamentation of Don 
Roderic." 

[4] 



THE VALE OF ENDOR 



ably drowned in the Guadalete; for, after the 
battle, his horse and sandals were found on 
the edge of the river ; but pious and loyal tra- 
dition refused to end thus ignominiously the 
career of the last Visigothic king. During the 
Middle Ages, he was popularly supposed to 
have spent long years in solemn penance for 
his sins — which, in truth, were many — and 
then to have been transported to a mysterious 
isle in the Atlantic, from which he would some 
day return, purified and invincible, once more 
to lead his people against their Moslem 
foes. 

But Christian Spain waited long years for 
her deliverance. During nearly eight cen- 
turies, the richest provinces in the peninsula 
were held by the Moors. 

After the Battle of Jerez, the victors swept 
northward with the quick devastation of a for- 
est fire. The rest of Spain was theirs, almost 
for the asking. Cadiz, Cordova, Toledo, Se- 
ville, capitulated in rapid succession. A 
horde of serfs turned wearily to the service of 
new masters. Spain became as thoroughly a 
Moslem empire as Egypt or Morocco. Then, 
turning past the low eastern slope of the 
Pvrenees, the conquerors advanced into south- 

[5] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

ern France. As early as 719, Narbonne 
and Carcassonne were occupied by Moslem 
garrisons. In twenty years from the day that 
Tarik landed on Spanish soil, the sway of 
Islam reached from Gibraltar to Bordeaux, 
and Abd-er-Rahman dreamed of the speedy 
conquest of all France. 

In 732, Charles Martel finally checked the 
invasion at the memorable Battle of Tours, 
and western Europe was saved; but not even 
his valiant Franks dared follow the defeated 
Moors southward into the mountains. For 
nearly two generations longer, the Moslems 
ruled the Pyrenees, and as far beyond them as 
the city of Narbonne. 

It was during these troublous years when 
the Christian civilization of southwestern Eu- 
rope seemed doomed to speedy annihilation at 
the hands of the unconquerable Moslem 
armies, that some terror-stricken Catalan peas- 
ants left their fertile fields among the foothills 
of the County of Urgel, and fled up the 
Segre River and its tributary, the Valira, into 
the most remote and inaccessible valleys of the 
Pyrenees. Here, by the highest sources of 
their mountain torrent, the refugees settled in 

[6] 



THE VALE OF ENDOR 



barren niches of the great rock wall which 
guards the northern border of Spain, and 
hoped that the very poverty of their new home 
would insure them against further molestation. 




But beyond the Pyrenees lay France and a 
continent of "Infidels" which seemed ripe for 
conquest; so, hardly had the exiled Catalans 
had time to clear their little homesteads by 
the Valira River, before the Moslem raiders 
were again upon them. In desperation, the 
hard-pressed colonists appealed for help to 
the invincible Charlemagne, who gladly came 
to their assistance, and drove the Moors, not 
only from the Pyrenees, but from the adjacent 
parts of Spain. 

The relief, however, proved to be only tern- 

[7] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

poraiy. On the withdrawal of the Christian 
army, the tide of Moslem invasion again 
swept up the mountains, and again the fright- 
ened peasants besought aid from the mighty 
kingdom to the north. This time it was Char- 
lemagne's son, Louis le Debonnaire — or, as the 
Andorrans prefer to call him, "Louis the 
Pious" — who invaded Catalonia with such 
good success that now it was the Moors who 
were forced to flee for refuge to the high val- 
leys of the Pyrenees. There, in the little 
plain by the fork of the Valira, where to-day 
stands the tiny capital, Andorra la Vella, 
Louis inflicted upon the Moslems such a 
crushing defeat that henceforth the Pyrenees 
were free from them forever. 

The debonair prince knew his Bible; and 
when he looked upon the scene of the victory 
— the valley and the hamlet lying at the foot 
of the mountain — he was reminded of Endor 
and Mount Tabor, 1 and the Scriptural battle- 
field where also the army of true religion 
fought against the forces of heathendom. So 

i Louis was a little confused in his Scriptural geography; 
for Endor really lies at the foot of the hill Moreh (Little 
Hermon). Mount Tabor is close by, however; and the Plain 
of Esdraelon, which he had in mind, is the greatest battle- 
field in all the Holy Land. 

[8] 



THE VALE OF ENDOR 



he called the place "Endor," or, as it is now 
pronounced, "Andorra." * 

Louis did more for Andorra than merely 
drive out its enemies. It was he, it is said, 
who first formally recognized the locality 
as a self-governing political unit, and fixed 
upon the natural barriers of gorge and river 
and mountain which, to this day, form the 
boundaries of the country. In the ruined and 
half-depopulated villages he settled a number 
of his own soldiers; and, in order to reconcile 
them to living in this out-of-the-way and un- 
fertile region, he made its inhabitants free 
from every kind of tax or impost. Best of all, 
from the viewpoint of the continued existence 
and integrity of the new state, he placed it 
under the protection of one of his most valiant 
knights, whom he created Count of Urgel, the 
district from which the Andorrans had origi- 
nally emigrated. As a token of his own ulti- 
mate sovereignty, Louis demanded only an 
annual tribute of a couple of the trout for 
which the Valira has always been famous. 

Such is the tradition, held proudly and 
stubbornly by every patriotic Andorran, con- 

i Another and more probable etymology derives "Andorra" 
from the Moorish Al-darra, "The thickly wooded place." 

[9] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC' 

cerning the origin of the oldest, highest, 
poorest and, in population, smallest republic 
in the world. 



[10] 



II 

COUNTS AND BISHOPS 

STORIES about Charlemagne and Louis 
naturally abound in the "Valley," * as 
Andorra is popularly called. Travelers are 
shown the houses where the conquerors lodged, 
the exact localities of the famous victories, the 
footprint of Charlemagne in the rock, a large 
stone which he cleft with his sword, so that the 
hollow in it might serve as a manger for his 
steed, and the marks on the mountainside 
where Louis fixed a great iron ring in com- 
memoration of his campaign against the 
Moors. 

i The plural form of the word seems to be more commonly 
met with in Andorra itself, and to have the sanction of mod- 
ern official usage; but there is apparently no fixed rule in the 
matter and, both in French and Spanish writings, the singular 
is freely used in the interests of variety and euphony. In the 
(Latin) Concordat of 1278, the invariable designation is "the 
Valley or Valleys of Andorra." The singular, "Valley," is 
not only a somewhat more convenient form for English writ- 
ing, but it also gives a better idea of the littleness and essen- 
tial geographical unity of the country, and, therefore, will be 
uniformly employed in this book. 

En] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

When we come to examine more closely into 
the alleged Carlovingian origin of the An- 
dorran state, however, we find it difficult to 
substantiate the local traditions; and, indeed, 
these traditions themselves offer a number of 
confusing and irreconcilable variations. 

For instance, there seems to be a consider- 
able doubt as to whether it was Louis or his 
father who granted the first franchise to the 
inhabitants of the Valley; and if the latter, 
there is another and more plausible explana- 
tion than that already given, to the effect that 
Charlemagne did not come to the Pyrenees for 
the express purpose of succoring the An- 
dorrans, but merely passed over the mountains 
on his way to war against the Moors of Cata- 
lonia, and granted the freedom of the Valley 
as a reward for the aid its residents gave in 
guiding his army across the difficult pass from 
France into Spain. 1 

From other and reliable sources, we know 
that Charlemagne did actually cross the Pyr- 
enees and invade northern Spain in the year 
777 ; but it seems that this was done at the sug- 
gestion of some discontented Moslem emirs, 

i This version of the tradition is given, without question as 
to its correctness, in the Grand Dictionnaire Universell 

[12] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



who had offered to transfer their allegiance 
from Cordova to the Prankish monarchy. The 
Moorish rebels, however, soon began to quarrel 
among themselves, and Charlemagne, after an 
ineffectual attempt to capture the city of Sara- 
gossa, returned to France by way of the Pass 
of Roncesvalles, where his army was overtaken 
with the disaster made memorable through the 
Song of Roland. 

A few years later, Louis w r as sent by his 
father into Catalonia, where his arms were so 
successful that northeastern Spain was recon- 
quered from the Moors as far as the Ebro 
River, and the scattered states along the bor- 
der were thereupon organized by Charlemagne 
as the Spanish March, which was ruled by 
Frankish counts who rendered allegiance to 
the Holy Roman Empire. 

There is no documentary evidence, however, 
that either Charlemagne or Louis granted 
charter rights to Andorra, 1 and, while it is dif- 

i There is, indeed, among the archives of the Cathedral of 
Urgel a charter which claims to have been given by Louis to 
Andorra in the year 805; but this is now generally conceded 
to be a forgery of two or three hundred years later, which was 
presumably fabricated as evidence in the controversy between 
the bishops and counts concerning their respective rights in the 
Valley. 

[13] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

ficult to prove a universal negative, it is at 
least very unlikely that either of them ever 
passed through the Valley. 

But this does not mean that there is no basis 
of fact underlying the popular beliefs concern- 
ing the origin of the nation. On the contrary, 
all that we know of the contemporary history 
of neighboring localities points to the essential 
truth of the Andorran tradition, though here, 
as always, tradition expresses truth in its own 
peculiarly vivid and personified manner. 

After the Moors had been driven from the 
Pyrenees at the beginning of the ninth cen- 
tury, there was a drift northward of the Chris- 
tian population of Spain. Some were return- 
ing to the devastated homes from which they 
had fled at the approach of the African in- 
vaders, and many others left richer farm-lands 
in the war-scourged plains for less fertile and 
hitherto unsettled mountain valleys, where at 
least they could dwell secure from Moslem 
oppression. Charlemagne encouraged these 
mountain pioneers, actuated apparently by 
three motives: a kindly desire to help his suf- 
fering co-religionists, a natural willingness to 
increase the value of his possessions through 
settlement and cultivation, and, in particular, a 

[14] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



shrewd appreciation of the opportunity which 
was thus offered for organizing along the 
northern border of Spain a line of local militia 
which could meet the first shock of any new 
Moslem advance. 

So these little colonies among the mountains 
of the Spanish March were granted an un- 
usually generous form of land tenure known 
as jus aprisioniSj which we may roughly trans- 
late, "squatters' rights." They were, of 
course, required to render the customary 
feudal military service in case of need; but 
they were freed from the payment of a quit- 
rent to the seigneur, and sometimes were re- 
leased even from the ecclesiastical tithe. They 
were also given an exceptional degree of free- 
dom in their local government, and were al- 
lowed to dispense justice according to their 
own peculiar customs, except in the case of 
the most serious crimes, such as murder, arson 
and rape, the punishment for which was re- 
served to the count. 

Now, in view of the unquestioned fact that 
this form of tenure under the jus aprisionis 
was quite common in the Pyrenees, and is 
known to have applied to several other dis- 
tricts within the bounds of the Seigneury of 

[15] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Urgel, the mere absence of documentary evi- 
dence in the case of Andorra is of little weight, 
as against the ancient tradition that the special 
privileges which the district still enjoys had 
their origin in aprisionis rights which were 
granted by the early Prankish kings. It thus 
seems more than probable that Charlemagne 
and Louis, through their campaigns against 
the Moors of Catalonia and their subsequent 
reorganization of privileged border states, did 
really have a large part, though possibly an 
indirect one, in providing for the safety and 
autonomy of Andorra. 

The imperial franchises of the other Pyr- 
enean settlements were little by little en- 
croached upon by the powerful feudal lords. 
Soon the jures aprisionis were denied, and the 
once free mountain districts became ordinary 
fiefs of the counts. Andorra alone retained its 
measure of independence, apparently because 
its very poverty made it hardly worth the while 
to oppress, and also because it lay on the ex- 
treme northern border of the County of Urgel, 
whose seigneurs were engaged in almost con- 
tinuous warfare with the Moorish enemies 
along their southern frontier. 

These early lords of Urgel seem to have 

[16] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



been valiant fellows. It should be remem- 
bered that they were not Spanish but Prankish 
nobles. Later on, upon the rise of the King- 
dom of Aragon, Urgel, like the rest of Cata- 
lonia, allied itself with the southern power with 
which it was in closer geographical union. 
But when the seigneuiy was established by 
Louis, the natural rulers of the land were ex- 
iled or disinherited, powerful Moorish states 
lay just to the south of them, and the new 
counts were separated from the forces of 
Frankish Christian civilization by the almost 
impassible Pyrenees. Like the other lords of 
the Spanish March, the seigneurs of Urgel 
lived, as it were, on a little cape, with the cliffs 
at their backs, and the great sea of Moslem 
enmity dashing its storm waves into their very 
faces. 

So they were not long-lived, these Counts 
of Urgel ; but we do not read that any of them 
died of ennui. Their biographies nearly all 
end with the same brave epitaph — Died fight- 
ing the Moslems. Count Ermengol I. fell in 
battle with the Moors, in 1010. His son, Er- 
mengol II., died thirty years later in the Holy 
Land. Ermengol III. was killed by the 
Moors at Barbastro, in 1065. Ermengol V. 

[17] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

fought the Moors all his life, and perished in 
an attempt to retake from them the Balearic 
Islands. Ermengol VII. died in 1183, fight- 
ing the Moors in Valencia. So the rulers of 
the little Christian seigneury, crowded up in 
northeastern Spain between the mountains and 
the Moors, stubbornly held their own, in face 
of the continued assaults of Islam. Theirs 
was a rude, hard type of Christianity, usually 
too busy fighting the enemies of the Faith to 
leave much time for growth in personal right- 
eousness ; but no invading army ever passed by 
them into France, and through all the cen- 
turies of bitter conflict between Spaniard and 
Moor, the Valley of Andorra never again knew 
the horror of Moslem occupation. 

It is only five years after the death of 
Charlemagne that the story of Andorra passes 
from the dimness of tradition into the light 
of authentic history. The Cathedral of Urgel 
had been destroyed at the time of the Moorish 
invasion of Catalonia; but after the victorious 
campaign of Louis the Pious, it was rebuilt by 
Bishop Posidinius. On November 1, 81 9, 1 the 

iThe genuineness of the Act of Consecration is unques- 
tioned; but there is some doubt as to its date, which a few 

[18] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



new edifice was dedicated with impressive cere- 
monies, and was endowed with lands given in 
the name of the emperor and of his vassal, 
Sunifred of UrgeL Among the parishes 
which are enumerated in the Act of Consecra- 
tion as belonging to the diocese, are six lying 
"in the Valley of Andorra, in the land of 
Urgel." » 

The Bishops of Urgel were no upstart 
priests of a petty diocese. The see is said to 
have been established in the early days when 
Spain was a province of the Roman Empire; 
and we know the names of its prelates as far 
back as the beginning of the sixth century. 
Toward the end of the eighth century, Cata- 
lonia had been overrun by the Moors ; but even 
then, when Urgel was sacked and the church 
destroyed, it is not certain that there was any 
break in the line of bishops. When Catalonia 
again came under Christian rule, Charlemagne 
enlarged the See of Urgel, so that it became 

authorities would fix as 839, instead of 819. Even this later 
year would, of course, fall within the reign of Louis. 

i Namely Lauretia (now San Julia de Loria), Andorra (i.e., 
Andorra la Vella), Santa Colomba (now replaced by Canillo), 
La Massana, Ordino and Encamp. It will thus be seen that 
there has been little change in the internal administration of 
Andorra during the last eleven centuries. 

[19] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

one of the most extensive and powerful dio- 
ceses in Spain ; and it was he also — so it is said 
— who first gave to it the right of tithing the 
Valley of Andorra. 

Now in those old days when the princes of 
the Church also enjoyed many of the preroga- 
tives of feudal lords, it can be imagined that 
misunderstandings might easily arise as to the 
exercise of suzerain rights over this valley 
which lay at once within the Diocese and the 
Seigneury of Urgel. Indeed, at the present 
time, French scholars who have made a special 
study of the early history of the Pyrenees are 
sometimes amusingly acrimonious in their dis- 
cussion of the extent to which the Church ex- 
ercised secular rule over Andorra. Some say 
that it was originally a diocesan possession, 
pure and simple, within whose bounds the 
bishops later granted the counts certain rights, 
in return for the protection which their arms 
could give. Others claim that the original 
proprietorship was vested in the counts, who 
granted to the Church only the customary 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, reserving to them- 
selves all other seigneurial rights. And there 
are various possible modifications of each of 

[20] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



these two hypotheses, involving grants and re- 
grants and exceptions and reservations, with 
all the numerous and bewildering variations 
known to feudal law. 

The latter of the above theories seems on its 
face the more probable, though it must be 
qualified by the fact that the Counts of Urgel 
were too busy fighting the Moors to bother 
much about little Andorra, and, as a matter of 
practice, were apparently quite willing to let 
the Church exercise for them at second hand 
their seigneurial authority over this inaccessible 
and unprofitable portion of their estates. 
From the tenth to the twelfth centuries the 
lords of Urgel made various grants to the 
Church which, according to one's original hy- 
pothesis, will be interpreted as mere confirma- 
tions of ancient and inalienable diocesan rights, 
or as the entire transference of a feudal pos- 
session, or as grants of spiritual jurisdiction 
with the customary ecclesiastical tithes, which 
were not intended to affect in any way the ex- 
isting or future exercise of the secular rule on 
the part of the counts or their vassal lords. 
But, whatever the strict theory of the case may 
have been, there is little doubt that, as a matter 

[21] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

of fact, the Bishops of Urgel, by the beginning 
of the twelfth century, did actually exercise 
secular jurisdiction over Andorra. 

We are not so much interested, however, in 
the abstract rights of this ancient contention as 
we are in its effects upon the future of An- 
dorra. If the matter seems confused now, it 
was doubly so during the Middle Ages, when 
the question was argued, not with mere wordy 
debate, but with fire and sword. But before 
the final struggle came between the counts and 
bishops, the secular lordship over the Valley 
had passed north of the Pyrenees into France. 

In the twelfth century, through various 
grants from the bishops or the counts, or pos- 
sibly from both, Andorra became included 
within the domains of the Viscount of Cas- 
tellbo, a vassal of the Count of Urgel; and in 
1202 Ermesinde, the heiress of Castellbo, mar- 
ried Roger Bernard II. of Foix, who there- 
fore, upon the death of his father-in-law, 
became possessed of the debated seigneurial 
rights in Andorra. Meanwhile the original 
Seigneury of Urgel, through the marriage of 
its heiress with a member of the royal 
family, had passed into the direct possession 
of the Kings of Aragon, by whom it was 

[22] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



finally annexed to the estates of the Viscounts 
of Cabrera. 

According to the Bishops of Urgel, any in- 
herited authority of the Counts of Foix over 
Andorra was merely held in fief from the 
Church, as had been the original concessions. 
According to the counts, their alliance with 
Castellbo had invested them with the secular 
rule over the Valley, which had never been 
transferred to the bishops by the Seigneury of 
Urgel. 

The rivalry between the two claimants be- 
came doubly bitter during the Albigensian 
Wars, when the Counts of Foix identified 
themselves with the cause of the schismatics. 
In 1236, Bishop Ponce de Vilamur was for- 
bidden by Roger Bernard II. to search out 
heretics in the estates of Castellbo, and the 
count was thereupon promptly excommuni- 
cated. It was under his grandson, Roger 
Bernard III., however, that the conflict 
reached its climax. This Count of Foix was 
not a man to sit down quietly and settle dif- 
ferences of opinion by calm discussion. With 
equal zest he defied the pope and made war 
against the kings of France and Aragon. 
Finally his quarrel with Bishop Pedro of 

[23] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Urgel (which involved other possessions in 
Castellbo besides Andorra) brought him into 
Catalonia with an invading army. Pedro III. 
of Aragon was far away in the south of his 
domains fighting the Moors; and Roger Ber- 
nard's path through the episcopal estates was 
marked by what the final treaty of peace de- 
scribes as "the slaughter of men, both soldiers, 
ecclesiastics and villeins, and the destruction of 
castles and houses . . . the mutilation of 
men's bodies, and many other atrocities and al- 
most unspeakable evils." Arriving at Seo de 
Urgel, he hanged his prisoners of war within 
sight of the city walls, and promised a like fate 
to all its inhabitants, unless the place at once 
offered an unconditional surrender. 

Four years later, in 1277, as the terms of 
the surrender had not been fulfilled to his sat- 
isfaction, Roger Bernard again prepared to 
ravage the estates of Urgel. This time, how- 
ever, Bishop Jathbert of Valencia, filled with 
sorrow at the useless shedding of blood in the 
neighboring diocese, used his influence with 
the contending parties to such good purpose 
that they were persuaded to declare an armis- 
tice, and submit their differences to arbitra- 
tion. 

[24] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



Six "friendly intermediaries" offered their 
assistance in arranging a satisfactory settle- 
ment of the conflicting claims. These were 
Bishop Jathbert himself ; Raymond de Besaln, 
archdeacon of Tarragona; Bonat de Lavayna, 
canon of Narbonne and papal tithe-collector 
for the Kingdom of Aragon ; and three nobles, 
Raymond d'Urg, Isarn de Fajaus, and Wil- 
liam Raymond de Josa. Their conciliatory 
efforts met with such good success that the con- 
tending parties agreed upon a concordat 
usually known as the Acte de Par cage, 1 or 
simply the Pareages, which was signed on Sep- 
tember 7, 1278 by the count, the bishop, and 
King Pedro of Aragon, and was witnessed by 
forty-six others, archdeacons, priors, abbots, 
canons, precentors, clerks, knights and law- 
yers. 2 On October 7, 1282, the concordat was 
formally approved by Pope Martin IV. ; and, 
as Roger Bernard nevertheless did not cease 
his intrigues in Andorra, was supplemented by 
a second treaty which, through the influence of 
two of the former arbiters, was signed Decem- 

i Pariage (Latin pariagium, Catalan pariatge) was a terra 
of continental feudal law which denoted the sharing of the 
jurisdiction over a certain fief between two seigneurs, such as 
was not uncommon during the Middle Ages. 

2 See Appendix II. 

[25] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

ber 6, 1288. The Acte de Pareage was des- 
tined to settle permanently the political status 
of the Valley, and is rightly viewed as the 
Magna Charta of Andorra. 

Stripped of the repetitious legal phraseol- 
ogy of the Middle Ages, its provisions are as 
follows : 

The count and the bishop were each to be 
represented in the Valley by a "bayle " * 
(Latin bajulus), and these should jointly ad- 
minister justice. If either were absent, how- 
ever, the other might serve alone, provided 
that whenever the absent bayle returned, he 
should be consulted with regard to the disposi- 
tion of any unfinished cases. 

The count was also, if he desired, to be rep- 
resented in the Valley by a "viguier," 2 or 
deputy (vicarius). The deputy of the bishop 
is not mentioned, but was doubtless taken for 
granted, as the Church had already for some 

i This is the spelling adopted by the French courts ; and I 
shall use it throughout in preference to the Catalan battle, 
which the reader might find difficult to pronounce, or the Eng- 
lish bailiff, which might lead to a confusion with our modern 
court officer who bears the same title. 

2 Again I shall use the French name, which formerly was 
applied to the provosts of Languedoc and Provence. The 
full Catalan title is veguer de las vails. 

[26] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



?> 



time previous exercised its authority over An- 
dorra through such an officer. 

The two suzerains were to levy a "quistia, 
or tribute, in alternate years. In the bishop's 
year, the amount which might be collected was 
limited to 4,000 "Malgorian sous," but the 
count was to be allowed to take as much as he 
wished. In the course of time, however, this 
levy was also made a fixed sum, which before 
the French Revolution had been set at 1,920 
francs. The count was also favored above 
the bishop in that he was to receive three- 
fourths of all the fines or other moneys col- 
lected by the bayles, but the expenses of ad- 
ministration were to be deducted before this 
division was made. The distinctively ecclesi- 
astical fines and taxes were to be received by 
the Church as formerly. 

In regard to the theoretical basis of the orig- 
inal controversy, the arbiters approved the 
bishop's claim to be the rightful suzerain of 
the Valley; and decided that the count was to 
hold his share of the divided sovereignty over 
Andorra as a fief from the bishop, to whom he 
was to do homage, according to the "Barcelona 
rite." 

Since 1278, the relations of Andorra with 

[27] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

its Spanish suzerain have remained unchanged ; 
but, through various inter-marriages of the 
counts with other and more powerful families, 
the Seigneury of Foix became assimilated with 
Beam and later with Navarre, and its feudal 
rights over Andorra eventually rested in 
Henry of Navarre, who became King of 
France in 1589. 

Thus the authority over the Valley which 
was given to Roger Bernard III. in 1278, was 
exercised successively by the Houses of Foix, 
Brailly, d'Albret and Bourbon, and since 
the accession of Henry IV., has been vested 
in the head of the French government, King, 
First Consul, Emperor or President, as the 
case might be. 

The only break in this relationship came in 
1793, when the representatives of the new Na- 
tional Assembly refused to receive the tribute 
from Andorra, on the ground that its accept- 
ance would savor of a feudalism incompatible 
with republican institutions. But the An- 
dorrans themselves urged incessantly the re- 
sumption of the previous relations with their 
powerful northern neighbor; and finally, in 
March, 1806, Napoleon, who was then First 
Consul, signed a decree "in regard to the peti- 

[28] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



tion of the inhabitants of the Valley of An- 
dorra to be reinstated in their former police 
and commercial relations with France," 
which put in force again the ancient pro- 
tectorate. 

It is commendable to all parties concerned 
that the then Bishop of Urgel unexpectedly 
and heartily seconded the efforts of the Andor- 
ran government to procure the resumption of 
the joint sovereignty. 

We must remember that the various and 
somewhat complicated readjustments in feudal 
relationships which have just been described 
were spread out over a period of more than a 
thousand years. Also, with hardly an excep- 
tion, they were quite external to Andorra itself. 
Even when angry Roger Bernard was bent on 
chastising the Bishop of Urgel, he avoided 
passing through the mountain district over 
which the contention had arisen. Few of the 
great changes taking place around them were 
known, and fewer were felt, bj^ the inhabitants 
of Andorra. During all the troublous cen- 
turies when Europe was shaken to its founda- 
tions by incessant wars and savage revolutions, 
that the overthrow of mediaeval feudalism 
might prepare the way for the coming of mod- 

[29] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

ern civilization, the life of the Valley was quite 
untouched. 

The boundaries of the country, its internal 
divisions, the number of its inhabitants, are all 
the same now as they were at the dawn of 
Andorran history. Nearly everything about 
the Valley is literally "immemorial" — its 
peculiar exemptions and privileges, its reliance 
upon foreign powers to protect its borders, its 
strange immunity from outside interference 
with its local affairs. The best that we can 
do is to fix approximately the century when 
these originated. The same is true of the gov- 
ernment of the Republic. Hardly anything 
is known about its workings before the time 
of the French Revolution. The General 
Council is said to have been established through 
the good offices of Ponce de Vilamur, who 
was Bishop of Urgel during the early part 
of the thirteenth century; but this is little 
more than a blind guess. The country is a 
protected republic now, and so far as any evi- 
dence to the contrary is concerned, its inhabi- 
tants have made their own laws ever since they 
first fled from the Moors to their mountain val- 
ley. That is the most that can be said upon 
the subject. 

[so] 



COUNTS AND BISHOPS 



If the proverb is true, Andorra is the hap- 
piest of nations; for a thousand years it has 
had no history. 

Over the entrance to the Capitol at Andorra 
la Vella is carved the coat-of-arms of the Re- 
public, which perpetuates the memory of the 
strange dual protectorate, for its quarterings 
are the miter and crozier of the See of Urgel, 
the bars of Foix and the cows of Beam. 1 
Above the escutcheon is a Latin quatrain 
which breathes the imperturbable satisfaction 
with which the Andorran views his country's 
history and destiny. We might roughly 
translate the lines: 

"You here behold a Neutral Valley's arms, 
Whose quarterings nobler nations have rejoiced to bear. 
Each singly has some alien people blessed: 
Andorra's Golden Age shall from their union spring." 

i See the cover design, which is based upon Tucker's The 
Valley of Andorra and the Nouveau Larousse. I unfortunately 
neglected to make a drawing of the coat-of-arms, and the pho- 
tograph which I took was poorly focused. Mr. Spender, fol- 
lowing Vilar, who apparently quotes from Vidal, gives a 
slightly different quartering, according to which the miter and 
crozier are in the same section of the shield, thus allowing 
room for the bars of Catalonia in the fourth quarter. It is 
hard to reconcile such an arrangement, however, with what 
can be made out on my photograph. 



[31] 



Ill 

THE ROCK OF FOIX 

THE natural entrance into Andorra is from 
the south, the way the first settlers came, 
following the Segre River through Catalonia 
to Seo de Urgel, and thence up the valley of 
the Valira. But the modern traveler will find 
this route a wearisome one; for there are few 
stretches of good road, and the Spanish rail- 
ways run south of the foothills of the Pyr- 
enees, far from even the beginning of the 
central range. The nearest station to Seo de 
Urgel and the Valira is Calaf, which is eighty 
miles away. 

The French passes are high, difficult at all 
seasons, and during half the year are blocked 
with snow. On the other hand, the railway 
from the north runs to the very edge of the 
Pyrenees; and most travelers will consider it 
worth while to endure the one day's long, ex- 
hausting climb over the pass, for the sake of 
the great saving in time, as well as for the more 
imposing mountain scenery which this route 
affords. 

[32] 



/ 

THE ROCK OF FOIX 



The northern approach to Andorra is also 
interesting historically ; for it takes us through 
the ancient County of Foix. Fifty-two miles 
below Toulouse we reach the stronghold of the 
feudal lords who were the suzerains of the 
young republic. 

The little city of Foix lies along a curve of 
the Ariege River, and it needs only one glance 
at the place to understand its strategic impor- 
tance as an armed gate across the long, nar- 
row valley which pierces far south through the 
Pyrenees to the very border of Spain. In 
these piping days of peace, however, Foix has 
a population of only 7,000, and bears the repu- 
tation of being the dullest county-seat in 
France. 

The lower town by the railway lies down in 
the old river bed, and, owing to the bend of the 
stream, is enclosed on all sides by close, steep, 
wooded hills, which frame the sheltered vale 
with a quaint and restful beauty, but which, 
on a hot July afternoon, as we soon discovered, 
shut out every breath of air. The whole place 
seemed asleep, except for a few indifferent 
railway officials, and a couple of dapper little 
lieutenants who had come to the station to 
meet visiting friends. We decided to our own 

[33 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

satisfaction that the very attractive young 
woman who had come down in the train with 
us from Toulouse was the wife of the middle- 
aged business man who accompanied her, and 
the sister of the more handsome of the lieu- 
tenants; and as we afterwards watched the 
vivacious group at lunch, the eager enjoyment 
of the two officers seemed to betray almost 
pathetically the dead monotony of their every- 
day life in this hot little garrison town. 

When we came out from the darkened 
station, the whitish dust on the smooth 
government road beside the Ariege shone so 
dazzlingly that we had to half-close our eyes 
to keep out the glare, and the waves of heat 
shimmered up from the sidewalks as if Foix 
had been one great, glowing stove. So we sat 
for a long time on the hotel porch overhanging 
the river, and chatted with a homesick waiter 
from Paris, who could see nothing good in 
southern France except the trout, which he 
said were so plentiful that people who lived 
alongside the Ariege often caught a mess of 
fish by dropping lines out of their kitchen 
windows. 

But with the castle fairly hanging over us, 
even the sweltering heat of the summer sun 

[34] 



THE ROCK OF FOIX 



could not excuse us from climbing the steep, 
cobble-stone streets to the "Rock of Foix." 
This is a small, blocklike hill which rises ab- 
ruptly at the back of the town to a height of 
two hundred feet, and bears on its summit the 
three conspicuous towers of the feudal for- 
tress. 

As we walked through the well-built busi- 
ness district, our noisy footsteps disturbed the 
quiet of the summer afternoon. Crowds of 
curious children followed us, and a few shop- 
keepers wakened from their midday siesta at 
the back of their darkened stores, and stood 
in the doorways, drowsily rubbing their eyes 
as they watched the strangely energetic for- 
eigners. Off the main streets, however, the 
houses were sullenly shuttered against the 
blazing sun, and it was hard even to find any- 
one to point out our way. But through al- 
most every narrow alley we could get a 
glimpse of a tall tower of the fortress; so up 
and up through the town, and then round and 
round the castle hill, we toiled along the rough 
ascent, until we had quite lost our sense of di- 
rection ; and at last, still a little way below the 
summit, we came suddenly upon a massive 
gateway set down into the rock, and before the 

[35] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

gate we found the garrison of the fortress 
peacefully dozing in the shade of a cherry 
tree. 

He was a thin little old man, very wrinkled 
and sunburned, and cheerfully garrulous in 
the presence of evidently rare visitors. In the 
thick walls of the outer fortification was his 
combined kitchen, bedroom and living-room; 
a cozy, smoke-begrimed chamber, with the 
coat-of-arms of the Counts of Foix carved 
above the great open fireplace, and the table 
and chairs and floor cluttered with pots and 
pans and children's toys. The old man took 
a great deal of pleasure in explaining to us 
the mechanism of a cardboard aeroplane, which 
hung by a string from the ceiling. He told 
us that his daughter-in-law and little grand- 
child lived with him. Their bedroom was evi- 
dently over the gate, where we saw a narrow 
window whose clean panes and tidy white cur- 
tains showed signs of feminine care. 

According to the concierge, hardly anybody 
ever came up to the castle, so he had plenty of 
time on his hands. Here and there, on nar- 
row ledges of the rocky hill, he had planted 
vegetables and flowers. Plum and cherry 
trees and wild strawberry vines were laden 

[36] 



THE ROCK OF FOIX 



with delicious fruit, ripened to an extraor- 
dinary sweetness by the hot southern sun. 
One fat cow browsed placidly on the grass- 
grown ramparts; a white goat was very much 
worried because her kid conversed so long in 
intelligent ba-a-a-s with the strange visitors ; a 
sleeping cat purred noisily on top of the wall ; 
and in a broken corner of the fortifications 
were cooped a few dozing chickens. When I 
get a little older, I should like nothing better 
than to become concierge here, and settle down 
cozily among the trees and flowers and warm 
quietness of the Rock of Foix, with a real 
castle all for my own. 

The first to bear the title of Count of Foix 
was Bernard Roger, 1 second son of Roger of 
Carcassonne, who inherited from his father a 
large territory in the southwestern part of the 
family estates. The original House of Foix 
became extinct in 1391 upon the death of 
Gaston Phcebus, who had killed his only legiti- 
mate son in a fit of jealous rage. The last 
ruler of the independent County was Gaston 

i Bernard Roger is by some writers counted as the first 
Roger Bernard, which of course throws one number forward 
the designation of each of the three counts who subsequently 
bore the latter name. 



[37] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

IV., who married Eleanor, the Crown Princess 
and, later, Queen of Navarre. Upon the 
death of Gaston, he was succeeded by his 
grandson, Francis Phoebus, who became King 
of Navarre in 1479; and thereafter the im- 
portance of Foix was overshadowed by that 
of the larger domains with which it had become 
united. 1 

They were very tenacious of family names, 
these proud old counts. Nine of the first ten 
were called Roger; and then, after Roger 
Bernard the Great married Marguerite, 
daughter and heiress of Gaston VII. of Beam, 
four of the next eight rulers of Foix bore the 
Bearnese name of Gaston. 

These Rogers and Gastons were bold, arro- 
gant seigneurs who, in their strong castles on 
the hilltops of southern France, recked naught 
of any nominal allegiance to either king or 
pope, and exercised despotic sway over the 
snug little realm that was theirs. They went 
on pious crusades to the Holy Land, and were 
excommunicated for their contumacious sup- 
port of heretical uprisings in Catholic France. 
They won fame for the sweet love songs they 
wrote, and they murdered their own sons. 

i See Appendix I, The Counts of Foix. 

[38] 




A STREET IN FOIX 



THE ROCK OF FOIX 



They married king's daughters, and made war 
upon their royal relatives. As if independent 
sovereigns, they entered into formal treaties 
with the great nations about them; and from 
their sturdy loins sprang the rulers of Beam 
and Navarre and, at last, of a united and 
glorious France. 1 

The castle at Foix is identified with the his- 
tory of the Rogers rather than that of the Gas- 
tons, who, with their growth in wealth and 
power, preferred to hold their court in newer 
and more luxurious residences, such as those 
at Mazeres, Pau and Orthez. For this was a 
fort, rather than a chateau, and was older even 
than the countship to which it gave its name. 

In its present form — and, owing to the con- 
figuration of the hill, it can never have been 
much larger — the castle contains only one or 
two private chambers, the great salle dfarmes, 

i At least one Count of Foix not only made history, but 
helped write it; for the best contemporary chronicle of the 
Middle Ages tells us that it was at the court of Gaston Phoebus 
(then not at Foix, however, but at Orthez in Bearn) that 
Froissart "learned the greater part of those events which hap- 
pened in the kingdoms of Castille, Portugal, Navarre, Aragon, 
and even in England, also in the Bourbonnais, and everything 
concerning Gascony." "The Count himself," continues Frois- 
sart, "was very communicative and readily answered every 
question put to him." 

[39] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

and, in the towers, guard-rooms for the gar- 
rison. The fortress, which is now being ad- 
mirably restored at the joint expense of the 
Department and the national government, is a 
striking example of the Gothic military archi- 
tecture of the Middle Ages. Of the three yel- 
lowish sandstone towers, the two square ones 
were erected in the eleventh or twelfth cen- 
turies, and the round "donjon" is popularly 
ascribed to the famous Gaston Phoebus, who 
partly reconstructed the castle in 1362. It 
seems more probable, however, that, at least in 
its present form, this imposing tower dates 
from the middle of the next century. It con- 
tains five circular guard-rooms, each with its 
enormous fireplace, while almost entirely ex- 
cavated beneath the surface of the hill is a 
damp, dark prison chamber, lighted only by 
one tiny slit of a window, set high up in the 
thick wall. Small as is this castle in compari- 
son with many other feudal strongholds, it 
gives an unusual impression of proud, hard 
strength, and seems a fitting memorial of those 
redoubtable Counts of Foix, who were the 
valued allies or dreaded rivals of kings, and 
whose blood at last flowed in the veins of the 
rulers of France. 

[40] 



THE ROCK OF FOIX 



Of the many sieges which the castle has un- 
dergone, the two most famous occurred during 
the religious wars of the thirteenth century, 
when the Counts of Foix, like their suzerains 
of Toulouse, sided with the Albigenses, and 
suffered greatly, both in honor and estate, 
from the failure of the Protestant cause. In 
1210, the cruel and fanatical Simon de Mont- 
fort, father of that other Simon who became 
the English Earl of Leicester, ravaged the 
County of Foix, set fire to the town, and shut 
up Raymond Roger in his little castle. This, 
however, was so stubbornly defended that the 
Count of Montfort was at length obliged to 
withdraw his forces without having captured 
the fortress. 

In 1272, the last of the Rogers — the same 
who signed the Par cages with Bishop Pedro 
of Urgel — found himself besieged by the 
army of France, under command of no less 
distinguished a person than the king himself. 
Philip the Hardy found that he could not take 
the hill by assault, but he undermined the 
Rock of Foix, and then gave Roger Bernard 
the choice of surrendering or seeing his fortress 
tumble about his ears. We cannot but re- 
joice that a sentimental regard for the home of 

[41] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

his fathers, as well as a cold-blooded analysis 
of the situation, induced the count to adopt 
the alternative which left the castle intact. 

During the next three centuries, Foix was 
never long free from religious strife. Catho- 
lics and Huguenots held the castle by turns, 
and fierce battles were fought in the city 
streets. The sixteenth century, in particular, 
was a veritable reign of terror for the citizens, 
who at one time saw the citadel turned into 
an ecclesiastical prison, behind whose silent 
walls were enacted the mysterious horrors of 
the Inquisition. 

When the Huguenot Wars were finally 
ended in 1629 by the Peace of Alais, the vic- 
torious Catholics planned to raze all the Prot- 
estant strongholds in France; but the Castle 
of Foix escaped the general destruction, by 
special orders of Richelieu himself. 

After we had climbed up and down the one 
hundred and forty-seven worn, winding steps 
which lead to the battlements of the donjon 
tower, we were glad to throw ourselves flat on 
the little circle of shaded lawn beside the 
armory, and take a more leisurely survey of 
the castle and the valley. In spite of the gray 
old ramparts, it was a scene of such Sabbath 

[42] 



THE ROCK OF FOIX 



quietness and peace that we found it hard to 
realize the grim history of the ancient capital. 
The rough stone walls were overgrown here 
and. there with rich, dark ivy. Hollyhocks 
and lilacs pushed up between the broken flag- 
stones of the court. Now and then a puff of 
breeze blew from over the hills which hemmed 
in the crowded, stifling town beneath us. 
While we lay motionless, little white butter- 
flies fluttered over the grass, pigeons cooed 
from the turrets, and swallows called to one 
another as they swept past the battlemented 
towers. The valley below, along which there 
marched against the haughty fortress the 
armies of Simon de Mont fort and Philip the 
Hardy, lay in absolute stillness, except for 
the muffled puffing of a distant train. Just be- 
neath the castle, the old Church of St. Volu- 
sien, about which once raged the fanatical 
conflicts of bitter religious warfare, raised its 
towerless nave above the homely roofs of a 
slumbering town. The surrounding hills were 
checkered to their very summits with little 
squares of ripe, yellow grain. The cloudless 
sky was of the deepest, clearest blue. 

Around the whole circle of the horizon there 
was no break in the picture of bright, warm 

[43] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

contentment, except at the south, where we 
could see far up the valley of the Ariege to the 
dark, distant Pyrenees, amid which lay the 
goal of our journey. 



[44] 



IV 

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES 

FROM the viewpoint of race and language, 
the Ariege is the last, easternmost valley 
of the French Pyrenees; for in the Depart- 
ment of the Pyrenees Orientales (ancient 
Roussillon) , which lies between the Ariege and 
the Mediterranean, there are such easy passes 
over or around the mountains that the history 
of this district has been more often linked with 
Spain than with France. Its inhabitants are 
of Catalan blood, their costumes show Spanish 
touches, the capital of the Department, Per- 
pignan, seems almost like a Spanish city, and 
the language commonly spoken in the Pyrenees 
Orientales is Provencal, which is not a patois 
of French, but an elder sister of the Catalan. 
On the railway trains of southeastern France, 
I find it advisable to begin a conversation by 
asking, "Does Monsieur speak French?" The 
answer is apt to be "Tres pen" — very little in- 
deed! — perhaps hardly more than "out" and 
{e non" In one crowded compartment, I was 
actually the only person who could frame a 

[45 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

sentence in intelligible French. And this was 
in France ■, and on the main line of the railway ! 

The Ariege country is entirely French- 
speaking; but as we follow up the river south- 
ward, we are, as it were, penetrating into the 
farthest corner of real France. 

Ten miles below Foix we pass Tarascon — 
not the Tarascon of the redoubtable Tartarin, 
which lies near Marseilles; but a self-satisfied 
and unprogressive little manufacturing town, 
the smoke of whose iron furnaces rises about 
the crumbling tower on the castle hill. This 
slumberous city was once, however, counted 
among the chief fortresses of the County ; and 
in its chateau was signed the marriage contract 
between Roger Bernard II. and Ermesinde of 
Castellbo, upon which were later based the 
claims of the Counts of Foix over Andorra. 

Then comes Ussat-les-Bains, with its lime 
springs and subterranean lake and prehistoric 
grotto. Here a large proportion of the pas- 
sengers leave the train, and make their way 
to the Etablissement Thermal, whose long, 
low, white facade is the most prominent 
feature of the little town. 

From the next station, Les Cabanes, we might 
follow up the Ashton River, and then jour- 

[46] 



THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES 

ney straight southward over the Fontargente 
Pass into Andorra ; but though this is the most 
direct route from France into the mountain 
republic, it is very difficult and, in bad weather, 
even dangerous ; so we shall continue to follow 
the Ariege, and enter the country from the 
northeast. 

As the train puffs slowly up the valley, 
black cave-mouths are seen in the gray cliffs on 
either side; for these mountains hold innumer- 
able caverns which, during the fierce religious 
wars which devastated the County of Foix, 
often served as places of refuge for the de- 
feated and persecuted partisans, Catholic or 
Huguenot, as the case might be. We see 
more ruined castles on their tiny hillocks, we 
stop at more colonnaded sanatoriums where 
our fellow-passengers will bathe away the 
summer holidays. Back and forth we cross 
the noisy, foaming Ariege in the effort to find 
a foothold for the track on the narrow border 
between the river and the cliffs, until at last, 
seventy-seven miles below Toulouse, we de- 
scend from the train at the terminal station, 
Ax-les-Thermes. 

Though almost unknown to English-speak- 
ing tourists, this northern border of the Pyr- 

[47] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

enees is one of the oldest civilized portions 
of western Europe. "Ax" is the Provencal 
Acqs j, from the Latin Aquce; and Ax-les- 
Thermes was famous for its medicinal waters 
before the days of the Roman Empire. In the 
fifth century, the heathen Visigoths conquered 
the Christians of Ax and martyred their brave 
bishop, Udaut, who, when he was commanded 
to offer homage to the victorious Attila, ut- 
tered the splendid words of defiance which are 
now inscribed over the entrance porch of the 
little parish church beside the public square : 

" 'Dieu seule adoras/ 
Je veux vaincre Attila, je ne l'adore pas!" 

The Notice Historique sur la Ville d'Ax, 
by a learned local druggist, M. Marcailhou 
d'Aymeric (pharmacist of the first class, 
laureate and medallist of sixteen lines of scien- 
tific and literary societies) chronicles the sub- 
sequent history of the little town under such 
significant heads as Religious Wars, Plagues, 
Cholera Epidemics, Conflagrations, Earth- 
quakes and Spanish Invasions. But modern 
Ax is very dull, even in the summer "season," 
and is very healthful, in spite of the obtrusive 
uncleanliness of its poorer quarters. 

[48] 




AX-LES-THERMES THE CHURCH OF ST. VINCENT 

AND STATUE OF BISHOP UDAUT 



THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES 

Our hotel was the noisiest in which I have 
ever lodged. The proprietor was a frail little 
old lady in a crinkly black silk dress, who sat 
enthroned on a low chair in the bureau be- 
tween the entrance hall and the dining-room, 
whence, under ordinary circumstances, she is- 
sued her commands by shrill, ear-piercing 
shouts in an incredibly high falsetto. But the 
slightest difference of opinion with either serv- 
ants or guests raised her voice to such an 
apoplectic and unintelligible shriek that several 
times I was divided between fear that she might 
die in a fit, and apprehension lest she should or- 
der me to be thrown out of the hotel. Her bark 
was worse than her bite, however ; and these at- 
tacks of apparently murderous rage always 
ended in her offering me a glass of absinthe. 

The prime minister of this aged and vocifer- 
ous autocrat was "inon neveu August e" a 
strapping youth of fifty, who obeyed her as un- 
questioningly as a little child. When the shrill 
" Augu-u-uste !" rang through the corridors and 
echoed through the street outside the hotel, he 
instantly dropped whatever he might be doing 
and hurried meekly to the office. But the mo- 
ment he left the Presence, Auguste became a 
roaring lion. Unbrushed, uncollared, unbut- 

[49] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

toned, with long frowzy hair flying into his 
wild eyes, and his feet clad in immense, loose 
carpet-slippers, this rheumatic giant shuffled 
and shouted through the hotel all day and — 
so far as we knew — all night long. At his 
tempestuous approach, impertinent waiters be- 
came tongue-tied, brawny railway porters 
waxed humble, and chambermaids burst into 
tears. 

His hour of greatest triumph was meal- 
time, when he stood glaring and scolding by 
the pantry window, and hurried along the 
courses of the table d'hote with a dizzying 
rapidity which would have aroused the envy of 
the proprietor of a Western fifteen-minutes- 
for-refreshments railway restaurant. His ner- 
vous eyes took in all the great dining-room 
at once, and if but a spoon or a salt-cellar 
proved missing at the farthest table, he broke 
forth into a perfect torrent of rage. We used 
to watch for the first outburst of tears from 
the waitresses. It seldom came later than the 
entree, and sometimes the poor girls sniffled as 
they brought the soup. 

One traveler reports that he took a single 
look within this mad-house of a hotel, and then 
ordered his luggage carried across the street. 

[50] 



THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES 

But he made a mistake. It is perhaps the only 
place in Europe where an American can always 
get what he wants when he wants it. Poor 
Auguste! — for all his scolding, he works 
harder than anybody else. I never once saw 
him sit down. The rooms are large and com- 
fortable, the service is excellent, the prices are 
moderate for a summer resort, and the cooking 
is beyond criticism. The trout, in particular, 
are worthy of the praises of Lucullus. If you 
care to try it, anybody in Ax will tell you the 
name of the hotel which is kept by the noisy 
little old lady and her blustering nephew Au- 
guste. 

We spent several days at Ax-les-Thermes, 
and were glad of the opportunity to observe 
one of the few French summer resorts which 
have not yet been exploited for American and 
English visitors. As a matter of fact, we did 
not hear a word of English spoken in the place, 
though we found out afterwards that one fel- 
low-countryman, a globe-trotting retired pro- 
fessor of Semitics, was there at the same time 
that we were. 

It was well called Aquce; for there is water 
everywhere. The whole town is built, so to 
speak, on the lid of a boiling kettle; a very 

[51] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

worn and leaky lid, through which bubble up 
more than sixty warm sulphur springs. 
Above ground, the Ariege is joined here by 
the Oriege and the Auze, 1 besides two or three 
smaller brooks. As the entire town of Ax 
covers an area of only about a sixteenth of a 
square mile, and these streams are all rapid 
mountain torrents, it may be imagined that 
there is everywhere an incessant sound of run- 
ning water. Perhaps that is why Auguste and 
his aunt got into the habit of shouting so loud. 
These rivers are also used as sewer-mains. 
Notices are posted with the significant order 
that garbage must not be deposited in the mid- 
dle of the streets or against the walls of the 
churches, but must be thrown into the gutters 
or the brooks. No recklessness of sanitary 
precautions, however, can seriously contami- 
nate these rapidly flowing streams, and Ax is 

i It is characteristic of the unsettled state of the language 
spoken near the border that this river is called both l'Auze 
and Lauze. Even at Ax itself, there seems to be a difference 
of opinion as to whether the I is the article or a part of the 
proper name; for the two maps in the authoritative Guide of 
the local Syndicat d'Initiative give different spellings. The 
same confusion exists with regard to the Arget or Larget at 
Foix. 

[52] 



THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES 

justly famous throughout southern France as 
a health resort. 

Its natural surroundings are charming. 
The town lies on a tongue of fairly level land, 
which extends only about four hundred yards 
in either direction. On three sides are the 
rivers, and on all sides are the mountains, so 
near that a five-minute walk from our hotel 
took us high up among the hills. 

The heart of the resort is the Place du 
Breilh, a square fully fifty yards long, without 
a blade of grass growing in the hard-trodden 
earth, but nevertheless made very attractive by 
its many plane trees, whose smooth, branchless 
trunks rise straight up to a height of twenty 
or thirty feet, like great grayish pillars, and 
then spread out with a broad, dense foliage 
which shades the ground below almost as ef- 
fectually as an awning. Throughout all the 
extreme south of France, especially along the 
public promenades and government roads, are 
found these beautiful trees, which keep out the 
sun without interfering with the view; and 
you can ride beneath their shade practically 
the entire distance from the Mediterranean to 
the Atlantic. 

[53] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

It was the height of the season, the hotels of 
Ax were crowded, and the street life was 
marked by a spirit of careless gayety. But 
there was really nothing to do! The wildest 
dissipations of the summer residents seemed to 
consist in taking a sulphur bath (called in the 
local dialect a bang), sipping an aperitif at one 
of the open-air cafes by the Place du Breilh, 
listening to the Casino band, shopping for 
post-cards, or riding on the ancient merry-go- 
round, whose brassy orchestrion (with one note 
missing) played the same short, maddening 
tune all day and all night. 

There are some sounds I shall never forget 
— the howl of a cyclone, the clatter of an earth- 
quake, the incessant roar of Niagara, the call 
of the muezzins of Stamboul, the rumble of the 
water-wheels of the Orontes, the "Wacht am 
Rhein" sung by marching German soldiers. 
And to my dying day I shall remember the 
unearthly screeching — especially the one note 
that was never played — of the merry-go- 
round of Ax-les-Thermes. 

But that does not mean that I did not like 
the place. I liked it for its very littleness and 
lack of distracting amusements, its shaded 
promenades, its luscious trout, its magnificent 

[54] 



THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES 

mountain setting; and I liked its people. In 
appearance, the townsfolk resemble the Span- 
iards just across the border. "We Ariegeois," 
said our chambermaid, "are more than half 
Spanish." They have the harsh, unlovely pro- 
nunciation of the Midi: they bang their nasals, 
and say Bong Matang for "Good Morning." 
Nevertheless they are very loyal citizens of the 
Republic, and have all the winning courtesy 
of the provincial French. 

Many Americans think that Paris is France, 
whereas the great capital — at least, that part 
of it which is seen by the average tourist — is 
really a kind of perpetual international exposi- 
tion. The real France lies far away, among 
the country provinces with their prim little 
county-seats and quaint farming villages and 
broad, rolling acres of wheat and vine, 
where the cure is still beloved and the stranger 
is given a courteous welcome. There the 
Frenchman is just as light-hearted — he would 
not be a Frenchman if he were not — but in- 
stead of the feverish and sometimes imperti- 
nent gayety of the capital, he shows a quiet 
contentment which comes from a capacity to 
be amused by the simple pleasures of life, and 
the memory of that little hoard of francs saved 

[55] 






ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

up against a rainy day, and the unshakable 
conviction that, as one of them who had lived 
in four continents expressed it to me, "After 
all, France is the very finest country in the 
world." It is such honest country folk as the 
inhabitants of the Ariege, who make the trav- 
eler feel more sure, each time he revisits them, 
that the French are the most temperate, thrifty, 
happy and courteous people in the world. 

Ax has its ruined fortress on a hilltop, of 
course. It is known as the Castel Mail, or 
"Castle of the Moors," from the tradition that 
it was originally erected during the Moslem 
occupation of the Pyrenees. But it is very 
badly ruined indeed, and, from what we could 
hear, was not worth the trouble of visiting. 
We did, however, climb another of the nu- 
merous precipitous hills in the neighborhood, 
on whose summit stands a tall statue of the 
Virgin, surrounded by four kneeling angels, 
and strung with electric wires, so that it can 
be illuminated on feast-days. In describing 
what the local Guide calls <c la belle statue," I 
should be inclined to preserve the quotation 
marks ; but the view from the hill is worth the 
climb, especially as we saw it in the calm twi- 
light of a Sunday evening,, 

[56] 



THE SHADOW OF THE PYRENEES 

Tiny Ax lay just below us, its compactly 
built houses swung round with the silver loop 
of the encircling streams. The hollow where 
the town rested looked as if it might have been 
made by some gigantic thumb pressing down 
into a tumbled heap of green and yellow vel- 
vets, so suddenly did the slopes rise about it, 
and so rich were the colorings. Everything 
was close and confused within the circle of the 
mountains, but everything was very soft and 
mellow All around the miniature watering- 
place were steep little hills, and dense little 
evergreen woods, and little stretches of curving 
white road, and little fields of grain set thrift- 
ily on every fertile shelf of the mountains, 
though it might be a thousand or more feet 
above the valley. Nothing that we could see 
was large, except the rocky summits of the 
Pyrenees, and even these seemed very warm 
and friendly in the glow of the setting sun. 



[*7] 



V 

FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 

EVERY morning at nine o'clock a big yel- 
low touring-car leaves Ax-les-Thermes 
and takes its swift, malodorous journey over 
the Col de Puymorens to Bourg-Madame on 
the Spanish border. But even this entrance 
into the Pyrenees seemed too beautiful to be 
hurried through with screeches and smoke; so 
we booked our passage on the old-fashioned 
courrier, or post-diligence, although this slower 
vehicle was advertised to leave at six o'clock, 
and really did leave at seven, and then took 
three hours, instead of the automobile's thirty 
minutes, to cover the ten miles to L'Hospita- 
let, where we were to take horses for Andorra. 
It is a stiff up-grade all the way. Ax itself 
lies 2,300 feet above the sea, and the carriage- 
road along the Ariege rises steadily at the rate 
of about 250 feet to the mile. Of course it is 
a good road — there are no other kinds in 
France — hard and clean, and guarded on the 
river side by blocks of native granite. 

We first follow a beautiful shaded prome- 

[58] 




< 



z 



C 
pq 
< 



< 
en 



FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 

nade along the river; and then, hardly out of 
sound of the town, the road plunges into the 
mountains, and twists and turns among the 
wooded slopes. Two or three miles from Ax, 
the valley suddenly contracts into the Gorge 
of Merens, a wild and romantic defile, which 
is chilly from the almost perpetual shadow of 
the vertical cliffs through which the Ariege has 
cut its deep, narrow channel. The river-bed is 
strewn with great blocks of granite which the 
winter frosts have detached from the moun- 
tainside, numberless cascades mingle their 
music with the deeper roar of the torrent, and 
the pyramids of earth and crumbled rock at 
the base of the canon walls bear short, sturdv 
pine trees. Except for the white curve of the 
splendid macadam road, the gorge presents a 
perfect picture of wild, primeval nature, un- 
spoiled by the hand of man. 

As we swung round a sharp turn of the de- 
file, however, we suddenly heard the chip of 
stone-cutters' chisels, and saw a rough tool- 
house fastened like a bird-cage beside a black 
opening high up in the cliff on the other side 
of the river. The French government is con- 
structing an electric railway which is to follow 
the Ariege to within two or three miles of its 

[59] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

source, and then cross the watershed by the 
Col de Puymorens and continue southward 
until it connects with the Spanish railway 
from Barcelona. When completed, this will 
be the first link between the two countries 
across the eastern portion of the Pyrenees ; for 
the road we are taking, although it starts off 
as if it were going on right down into the heart 
of Spain, really turns sharply as soon as it 
reaches the frontier, and swings back to the 
northeast into France again. 

The track for the new railway could be laid 
on one side of the embankment of the present 
carriage-road, and still leave sufficient room to 
accommodate all the vehicular traffic for years 
to come. But such slip-shod methods are not 
popular in France; so an entirely new road- 
bed is being constructed for the electric line, 
which in the many canon-like portions of the 
valley is to be carried along in galleries blasted 
out of the solid rock, or through long tunnels 
which cut under the shoulders of the granite 
hills. The additional, and as it at first seems, 
unnecessary expense will mount up into the 
millions; but the beauty of the valley will be 
less marred, and the mountain farmers will be 
able to drive in peace. 

[60] 



FOLLOWING THE ARlEGE 

The heavy work on this new road is all done 
by Spanish laborers ; for the local peasants ob- 
ject to the ardous toil, and also seem to look 
down on it as something demeaning. Unlike 
our own Italian and Hungarian day-laborers, 
however, these foreigners speak the language 
of the country quite intelligibly. A little 
company of them, who were spending their 
lunch hour pitching pennies, made me quite 
at home among them, and even honored me 
with a share of their clumsy bantering. Al- 
though these Spanish railroad hands looked 
very wild and lawless, and were continually 
engaged in the roughest kind of horse-play, 
they proved really to be a very simple, boyish 
lot of fellows, and after they had posed 
proudly before my camera, not one of them 
suggested that I ought to give them anything 
for their trouble. 

Suddenly the dim defile opens out into a 
wide, bright valley, with meadows alongside 
the river, and a long, boulder-strewn slope ris- 
ing high up to the left, while in the center, be- 
tween two side-torrents, the town of Merens 
lies in the hot, dusty sunlight, at the base of 
a lofty, conical mountain, which apparently 
blocks our further progress. 

[61] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Of course, there is a road around the moun- 
tain; but when we leave Merens, we have said 
a final farewell to the pleasant fields of France 
and the rolling foothills, and are among the 
towering rock-masses of the Pyrenees. As the 
diligence slowly ascends the valley, which now 
contracts again, the meadows along the river's 
edge grow still more narrow and at last en- 
tirely disappear. The little groups of orchard 
trees give place to open forests of evergreen, 
which straggle over the less precipitous slopes. 
The noisy river becomes a mad torrent, which 
bellies sullenly over hidden boulders, smites 
furiously at the cliffs which guard its turnings, 
and dashes itself into far-flying spray as it 
tumbles over sudden breaks in its rocky bed. 
From as high up as we can see, slender streams 
come tumbling over the rocky ridges in long 
successions of silvery cascades. Some smash 
into the river with thunderous splashing, and 
some, which begin a thousand feet above us, 
scatter into thin mist long before they reach the 
bottom of the cliff. 

Already we feel the spell of the mountains : 

"Cascades qui tombez des neiges entrainees, 
Sources, gaves, ruisseaux, torrents des Pyrenees; 

[62] 



FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 

Monts geles et fleuris, trones des deux saisons, 
Dont le front est de glace et le pied de gazons !" x 

At last, about ten miles from Ax, the road 
rises up the eastern side of the valley in a series 
of long, graceful loops, and then apparently 
ends abruptly at the Ultima Thule of France, 
the frontier commune of L'Hospitalet. 

This farthest Ariege hamlet is one of the 
smallest and poorest settlements in the whole 
Republic. A few half -ruined houses; a bare 
little church ; filthy alleys overlaid with whitish 
dust; broken boards on the bridges; a sur- 
rounding circle of naked cliffs which seem to 
focus all the summer heat upon the bottom of 
the bowl-like depression, where there is not a 
single tree to give shelter from the dazzling 
brightness; the noise of the cataracts drowned 
now and then by the rattle of the rusty dump- 
cars of the railway contractors; a fly-specked 
hotel whose ungracious landlord intimates that 
you must pay his own prices or starve — such 
are the attractions of L'Hospitalet. 

To be just, however, it should be added that 
the hotel is noted for its excellent cooking. 
Epicures among the summer colony at Ax-les- 

i Alfred de Vigny, Le Cor. 

[63] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Thermes often make excursions here for the 
sake of lunching upon ham, sausage and trout, 
washed down with a certain heavy wine of local 
fame. The food really is good ; but for myself 
I prefer to lunch without the accompanying 
dust, clatter and flies. 

The village is nearly 5,000 feet above the 
sea, and looks as if it had been roughly pushed 
up into the mountains as far as it would go. 
Neither the road southward to the Spanish 
border nor the bridle-path which leads south- 
west into Andorra is visible from the little inn 
where the diligence discharges its passengers. 
Even the river seems to lose itself; and as we 
ate a hasty lunch while our horses were being 
saddled, we wondered how we were going to 
penetrate the apparently unbroken wall of 
rocks which hemmed us in on all sides. 

Driving up the valley, we had taken the 
choice outside seats on the banquette, or Na- 
poleon, as it is called in southern France, and 
we had scraped quite an acquaintance with the 
driver, who proved to be a person of consider- 
able importance. In fact, he not only owned 
the diligence, but was the proprietor of a hotel 
at Ax. When he found that we were going 
into Andorra, he said that he needed a little va- 

[64] 




HOSPITALET 



FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 

cation and would himself provide the horses 
and act as our guide — for a consideration, of 
course. Did he speak the Catalan of the 
mountains? Parfaitement! Not only that, 
but he knew Andorra like the palm of his hand, 
and was intimately acquainted with the chief 
officials of the little republic. All of which we 
found later to be quite true; so, although he 
was called Monsieur Not, there was no occa- 
sion for us to pun upon the negative qualities 
suggested by his name. In any case, it would 
have been hard to explain the point to him, for 
he knew no English. 

We left L'Hospitalet by the narrow, alley- 
like street back of the hotel and, behold, the 
Ariege had cut a way for us deep into the 
rocky heart of the Pyrenees. Straight south 
the narrow defile led up between the great, 
grassy shoulder of the Andorran Soulane on 
our right and the abrupt, rocky slope of 
Mount Puymorens, which forms the eastern, 
or French, wall of the valley. 

As we turned into the bridle-path beside 
the stream, I looked dismally at the steep, 
stone-scattered trail and asked whether the 
road was like this all the way. "Mais non, 
Monsieur!" Not answered cheerily, "It isn't 

[65] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

often as good as this." And it was not. I 
have never ridden a worse road than that which 
we traveled during the nine hours' journey 
over the pass — locally called the port or "gate- 
way" — into the valley of Andorra. The mere 
steepness and roughness of the trail were not 
its worst features. It had an annoying habit 
of narrowing down to a mere line of loose, slip- 
pery slate, just as it led through a shallow but 
swiftly flowing stream which fell over the edge 
of the path in what, viewed from below, was 
probably a very high and beautiful waterfall. 
The first few times we rode along the upper 
brink of such a cascade, we found it hard to 
refrain from wondering how much the running 
water had undermined the stones, and how 
many hundred feet we would roll down the 
mountain, if the outer side of the path should 
break away. 

Our horses, however, were the best moun- 
tain-climbers I have ever ridden, and I quite 
forgive Not for charging us fifty per cent, more 
for them than the usual price. Their knees 
did not show a single scratch from stumbling, 
and, after hours of the hardest kind of travel- 
ing, they were still so full of spirit that if we 
dismounted to take photographs and thought- 

[66] 




THE ARIEGE RIVER ABOVE L HOSPITALET 



FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 



lessly let go their bridles, they would imme- 
diately run away up the shelving slope of the 
Soulane, where they would fight lustily with 
each other, or roll merrily upon their backs, 
to the considerable damage of our luggage. 

About a half hour out of L'Hospitalet, 
where the path crosses a rivulet known as la 
Palomere, a rude heap of stones marks the 
boundary between France and Andorra. 
There were so many piles of stones lying 
around, however, that we did not notice this 
particular one; and we were quite startled 
when Monsieur Not suddenly struck a dra- 
matic attitude, with widely outstretched arms, 
and exclaimed "UAndorre!" 

We had, indeed, crossed the frontier ; but this 
was not the real Andorra. It was No Man's 
Land. Far in front and above us, there rose 
only the bare outer slopes of the immense nat- 
ural ramparts of the country. Across the val- 
ley, on the eastern side of the Ariege in France, 
we could see the post-automobile, a tiny, 
swift-moving speck on the thin, white road; 
and high up on Mount Puymorens, a thousand 
feet above the river-bed, were the lonely en- 
gine-houses of two iron mines. But on our 
side of the boundary, in Andorra, there was 

[67] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

not to be seen a single tree or bush or culti- 
vated field, and the only building visible was 
one rude, empty swine-herd's hut. When we 
returned a few days later, we passed hundreds 
of large, shaggy cattle, which were feeding 
quite unguarded on the high pasture lands ; but 
that first afternoon, there was no living thing in 
sight, not even a goat browsing on a distant 
hillside. The panorama which unrolled be- 
fore us showed nothing but a stony, deserted 
bridle-path, winding up between the foam- 
flecked torrent and the indescribably poor, 
sun-burnt moorlands, above which rose the 
dark, jagged mountain peaks, lined here and 
there with dingy snow. 

We began to understand how, behind these 
barren, forbidding bulwarks, it might be 
possible for a clan of mountaineers to live a 
thousand years, without being touched by the 
stirring events which were taking place in the 
great nations around them. 

With all its naked loneliness, the scene was 
one of rare grandeur. The Pyrenees are not 
so high as the Alps, and they are considerably 
farther south; so the snow does not cover them 
in the summer, but only shows here and there 
as narrow, vertical streaks. On the other hand, 

[68] 



FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 

these peaks appear much more steep and 
rugged than the mountains of Switzerland. 
From the south, the Pyrenees rise by a very 
long, gradual slope, so that it is hardly pos- 
sible from any point in Spain to see past the 
foothills to the summits; but on the French 
side the range breaks down very abruptly. 
There are more sheer cliffs here than in any 
other part of Europe, and there are almost no 
isolated mountains. As you see it from a dis- 
tance, the typical Pyrenean massif resembles a 
gigantic saw, with a hard, metallic-looking 
side and sharp, short teeth. The notches be- 
tween the peaks are comparatively shallow. 
On the Andorran frontier no part of the 
watershed falls below 8,000 feet and no sum- 
mit reaches as high as 10,000 feet. It is this 
strange evenness of the central ridge which has 
made the Pyrenees more effective as a national 
and racial barrier than any other range on the 
entire continent. 

These enormous, irregularly leveled masses 
of smooth, bare earth and sheer blackish rock, 
with their sharply serrated edges, appear more 
primeval and lonely than if they were overlaid 
with dazzling, distanceless snow-fields and 
glaciers. The very nomenclature of the local 

[69] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

dialect seems characteristic of the hard, abrupt 
appearance of the range. The sharp, inacces- 
sible sliver of rock rising above the edge of the 
saw is a Puig. The black little pool lying 
in the shadow at the foot of the thousand-foot 
cliff is not called a lac but an etang, and the 
final syllable is given the full guttural sound, 
as in English. There is nothing friendly or 
mellow about the French side of the Pyrenees. 
The summits are cold and forbidding; boldly 
challenging, rather than wooingly mysterious. 
Yet often, when the sun shines upon them, 
these same grim, naked peaks give back a play 
of rich, soft coloring which is never seen ex- 
cept upon the treeless, snowless summits of a 
southern clime. 

Because of the unique configuration of the 
watershed, the passes over the Pyrenees are 
different from those of the other European 
ranges. The typical Alpine pass leads be- 
tween the highest mountains, so that the trav- 
eler is overlooked by summits which rise thou- 
sands of feet above him. In the Pyrenees, 
however, the passes must go over the moun- 
tains ; for there are no transverse valleys which 
cut quite through the range. Without excep- 

[70] 




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FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 

tion, they are high passes. Few are as low as 
6,000 feet. One, the Portillon d'Oo, reaches 
a height of 9,985 feet, which is less than 600 
feet below the loftiest peak in the neighbor- 
hood, and only 1,200 feet lower than the 
highest point in the whole range. The con- 
sequence is that, while Switzerland is covered 
with a network of railways, not one line crosses 
the Pyrenees. To get from France to Spain 
by rail, you must go around one end of the 
range, passing through Perpignan by the 
Mediterranean or Bayonne by the Atlantic. 
There are, indeed, wagon-roads which cross 
over the Pyrenees and down to the plains of 
Spain — exactly four of them in all, and the 
nearest of these is a hundred and eighty miles 
west of our route into Andorra! 

The typical Pyrenean pass first follows 
some deeply indenting ravine like that of the 
Ariege, and then crosses over a worn, rounded 
shoulder of the mountains. It is seldom dan- 
gerous climbing; for he who knows the coun- 
tryside may follow any one of a dozen short- 
cuts over the broad, grassy summit of the 
pass. But the stranger who does not know 
the mountains may lose his way and stumble 

[71] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

over some unforeseen precipice, or die from 
cold and hunger on the desolate moorland. 1 

He who would understand Andorra must 
first know these things about the mountains 
from which she sprang; for the strange little 
republic is own daughter of the Pyrenees, and 
in her peculiar natural surroundings is to be 
found the key to her unique history. Not by 
force of arms has her dearly prized inde- 
pendence been preserved, but by the bulwarks 
of God's eternal mountains. Forced up 
against the roadless ridges which form such an 
effectual barrier against intercourse with rap- 
idly developing modern civilization, the eyes 
of Andorra, have, remained steadfastly fixed 
upon her own past. With no possible open- 
ing for territorial expansion or industrial de- 
velopment, the nation's strength has been used 
merely to keep a firm, stubborn hold upon the 
little it already possesses. Hidden among the 
forests and rock-broken cataracts of the deep 
Pyrenean valley, Andorra is a veritable Rip 
Van Winkle land, hardly yet stirring from its 
thousand years' slumber, and in its dreams it 

i Hilaire Belloc and a friend once nearly perished on the 
northern border of Andorra, where they were lost in a storm 
for forty-eight hours. {The Pyrenees, p. 149f.) 

[72] 



FOLLOWING THE ARIEGE 

still hears echoing the march of the valiant 
paladins of Charlemagne. 

Before beginning the final steep ascent, we 
sat for awhile by a rude wayside cross and 
took our last look at France. Our path had 
for some time been gradually rising above the 
river-bed, and the Ariege was now so far be- 
low us that it was hardly more than a shim- 
mering silver thread at the bottom of the 
gorge. Far below us, also, were the long 
loops of the carriage-road, which a mile or so 
back of this point turned away from the river 
and plunged out of sight among the rocks, for 
its hard climb to the summit of the Puymorens 
Pass. Directly opposite us, on the other side 
of the valley, the dark, concave line of cliffs be- 
low the Pic de la Font Negre curved around 
like the inner side of a tremendous castle wall ; 
and in the deep shadow at their foot, the new- 
born Ariege, fresh-sprung from the womb of 
the rocks, rested for a moment in the Pool of 
the Black Fountain, before beginning its long, 
swift journey to the Garonne and the Atlantic. 

We had come to have a large respect for the 
indefatigable little stream. I think that } r ou 
never quite appreciate a river as you travel 
down it. But, toiling wearily upward with 

[73] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

this roaring, foaming torrent which through 
the ages has been ceaselessly cutting its way 
from the cold desolation of the Pyrenean sum- 
mits down to the warm, rich plains of fertile 
France, we came to feel toward it almost as if 
it were a living creature, and the mountains 
seemed more lonely than before, when at last 
we turned westward across the col, and left the 
head-waters of the Ariege nestling in the still 
little lake beneath the Peak of the Black Foun- 
tain. 



174] 




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VI 

THE HIDDEN VALLEY 

THE summit of the pass is exactly 8,000 
feet above the sea, and as we rode over 
the treeless col, before the storm came up, the 
view swung around nearly the entire horizon, 
and gave us an instant understanding of the 
physical configuration of Andorra. 

We were on the very edge of the watershed 
between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. 
As we faced toward the south, the source of 
the Ariege lay off to our left, hardly a mile 
away; and directly in front of us another 
mountain stream sprang from the snow-drifts 
of the Pic dfEmbalire and cut a deep valley 
which ran for its first five miles northwest- 
ward, and then, curving sharply, went down 
toward Spain. Far below us we could see the 
foaming water rushing between the dark, pine- 
clad slopes. But we could not follow the bot- 
tom of the valley very far; for soon it bent 
around a spur of the mountains and was lost 
to view among the wild summits of the Pyr- 
enees. 

[75] 




176] 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



This river, which hurries to the Ebro and the 
Mediterranean as swiftly as the Ariege rushes 
northward to the Atlantic, is the Valira, or 
Embalire, as it is sometimes called; the pass 
over which we have come is the Port d 'Em- 
balire or "Valira Gate"; and the valley below 
us is Andorra. 

As you see it on the map, the country meas- 
ures eighteen miles from north to south, its 
greatest width is seventeen miles, and its area, 
one hundred and seventy-five square miles; 
that is, it is smaller than the city of Chicago, 
half as large as the city of New York, and only 
one quarter the size of Greater London. 

But such comparisons give an exagger- 
ated idea of the magnitude of Andorra; for 
the greater part of this area is made up of 
lofty mountains, which are uncultivable and 
uninhabited. All the way from the border 
near L'Hospitalet to the summit of the Port 
d'Embalire, we have not yet seen a single habi- 
tation. The real Andorra consists merely of a 
narrow strip of arable land which follows the 
bottom of the valley alongside the Valira, and 
some high pastures on the wind-swept moun- 
tain summits. The inhabited portion of the 
country is in the form of a great Y , pressed 

[77] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

down violently into the mountains, but with 
quite a slant, so that the southern end is two 
or three thousand feet lower than the extremi- 
ties of the arms. Down the right-hand, or 
eastern arm of the Y flows the Valira del 
Orien; in the other arm is the Valira del Nort, 
also called the Ordino; below their junction, 
the main stream is known as the Gran Valira. 
The six parishes of Andorra are arranged in 
pairs in the three natural divisions of the coun- 
try: Ordino and La Massana along the west- 
ern stream; Canillo and Encamp by the east- 
ern; and Andorra la Vella and San Julia in 
the valley of the Gran Valira. 

All around this F-shaped depression, the 
Pyrenees rise from four to six thousand feet 
above the valley. At the foot of their sharp 
peaks are rolling pasture-lands, on their lower 
slopes are sparse evergreen forests, and down 
beside the river is a strip of fertility varying 
ordinarily from twenty feet to a quarter of a 
mile in width. Sometimes, however, there are 
stretches where the rocky walls of the valley 
press in so close that there is no arable ground 
at all, and not even room for the bridle-path, 
which has to turn away from the river for a 
while, and cross high over a shoulder of the 

[78] 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



mountain. Then again, within a bend of the 
Valira, will be a comfortable little group of 
fields and orchards. But I do not think that 
I saw ten square miles of cultivated land in the 
entire country. 

These woods and high pastures and this thin 
ribbon of fertility are the real country whose 
brave official title is " Les Vallees et Souver- 
ainete d'Andorre' 3 Here, for eleven cen- 
turies, a population of never over 6,000 hardy 
mountaineers have struggled to wrest a liveli- 
hood from the sterile soil, sheltered from the 
winter storms by the lofty Pyrenees which rise 
so close above their valley, protected from out- 
side interference by their very poverty, and 
every day thanking God that they were An- 
dorrans and were free. 

The very storm which broke upon us just 
as we reached the summit of the Port d'Em- 
balire, made the valley seem more attractive; 
for as we plodded wearily downward through 
the sleet and mud, the sunlight which moved 
so tantalizingly before us was hardly ever 
more than half a mile away. Back of us was 
the bare, deserted moorland, above were the 
dark mountains and the lowering storm- 
clouds; but in front was a picture of warm, 

[79] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

cozy content. Down there were bright little 
fields of yellow grain, and tiny, well-kept or- 
chards and peaceful sheepfolds with fences of 
interwoven saplings. When at last we saw 
a group of rude farm buildings on a bit of 
meadow beside a waterfall, we felt at once 
very friendly toward our first Andorran home- 
stead. Shortly afterwards there came into 
view, far off at the bending of the valley, the 
frontier hamlet. Then, at last, the sun broke 
through the clouds, and our blood ran warm 
again as, over a stretch of fairly good road, we 
cantered into the village of Soldeu. 

This was the birthplace of Andorra's one 
famous warrior, Jean Salvador de Calvo, who 
in 1641 entered the service of Louis XIV. as 
an obscure soldier of fortune, and fought his 
way up to the honored rank of lieutenant- 
general of France. In spite of the audacious 
recklessness which caused Louis to call him 
"Le brave Calvo" the Andorran general 
passed scathless through fifty years of almost 
continuous warfare, and at last died a soldier's 
death at the head of his charging troops. The 
stubborn tenacity of the Andorran character 
was well exemplified in a little speech which 
Calvo made when his command was besieged 

[80] 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



in the city of Maestricht by the Prince of 
Orange. "I don't know anything about the 
defense of fortified towns," he remarked to his 
assembled officers, "but I can tell you one 
thing — I don't wish to surrender and I won't 
surrender!" So of course, he did not ; but held 
on for fifty days, until the arrival of reenf orce- 
ments under Schomberg forced the Prince of 
Orange to raise the siege. 

But we were more interested in drying our 
clothes at Soldeu than we were in mediaeval 
history. Visitors to Andorra are strikingly 
unanimous in reporting that the one inn of this 
village is a noisy, ill-kempt and dirty place; 
but no luxurious modern hotel ever looked so 
attractive to me as did that ill-paved court- 
yard between the stable and the living-rooms, 
into which Monsieur Not led our dripping 
caravan. 

The inn-keeper was astounded at our half- 
drowned appearance. Messieurs had been 
caught in a storm? Marvelous! Why, there 
had not been a drop of rain in the valley for 
over a weejk ! But he was very solicitous for our 
health, and led us through the dark, cellarlike 
dining-room to a rickety veranda, where we re- 
moved as much as possible of our clothing and 

[81] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

hung it out to dry, while we ourselves luxuri- 
ated in the hot,, healthful light, and looked far 
down along the bright little fields between the 
close mountain walls of the valley. 

Narrow as is the strip of arable land, every 
square foot of it is under cultivation, and it 
seems to bear fairly abundantly, as well as in 
considerable variety. As we rode along from 
Soldeu, we noticed fields planted with po- 
tatoes, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, wheat, buck- 
wheat, barley, com, mint, rye, garlic, onions, 
and tobacco. Indeed, there is a tobacco fac- 
tory just outside the capital, and although 
from my own experiments I should have said 
that its product is quite unsmokable save by 
a hardened Andorran, I understand that a con- 
siderable amount is exported each year. At 
the extreme southern end of the valley there 
are a few vineyards, but the grapes are of such 
poor quality that they can be used only as 
raisins. 

Along the border of the stream are oaks, 
larches, willows, and tall cypress trees. We 
passed orchards of pears, plums, and quinces. 
Ordino, which we did not visit, is proud of its 
apples, and San Julia raises chestnuts and wal- 
nuts. Our path was often bordered by thick 

[82] 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



hedges of box and holly, which were used in- 
stead of walls or fences to separate one farm 
from another ; and, although the altitude of the 
valley ranges from three to six thousand feet, 
the wild flowers were noticeably large and 
abundant. While I was focusing my camera 
for a picture, my companion amused himself 
by picking a little bouquet of twenty flowers, 
each of a different kind, including the daisy, 
wild-rose, everlasting, scarlet mountain carna- 
tion, forget-me-not and blue iris. The last 
grows luxuriantly on the warm, sunny slopes. 
We saw whole fields which were crowded thick 
with the gorgeous, high-standing flowers. 

The three avowed occupations of the Andor- 
rans are manufacturing, farming and grazing. 
There is a fourth and very popular avocation, 
of which I shall speak later. The industries of 
the country are all, however, undeveloped or 
languishing. Although the mountains are said 
to be very rich in minerals, especially iron 
and argentiferous lead, the scarcity of fuel and 
the lack of adequate facilities for transporta- 
tion have prevented the mines from being 
properly developed. Even the beautiful and 
distinctive iron-work which formerly orna- 
mented the verandas of Andorra is now be- 

[83] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

ing replaced by the very ordinary factory 
products of France, which are imported free of 
duty. The same lack of a protective tariff has 
made it impossible for the Andorran weavers 
to compete with the cheap foreign machine- 
made stuffs. Whether this importation of 
low-priced goods is beneficial to the country 
or not, will of course be decided in accordance 
with one's own economic theories concerning 
the protection of naturally weak industries. 

The principal source of Andorra's wealth 
is the raising of cattle, sheep and mules. 
The mules of the valley, especially, are highly 
valued in the adjacent parts of France and 
Spain. On the upper slopes of the mountains 
are vast moor-lands, which are uninhabitable 
in the winter, but which in summer provide a 
splendid grazing-land of such large extent 
that, after all the animals of the Andorrans are 
allowed sufficient pasturage, there is left a con- 
siderable area which is rented to the semi-no- 
madic shepherds of Catalonia. The chief 
avenue for the investment of Andorran capi- 
tal lies in buying thin, half-starved animals 
from Spain and then, after fattening them for 
a summer, selling them back again at a hand- 
some profit. More even than the peasants of 

[84] 




THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



Switzerland, the Andorrans leave their valley 
homes when the warm weather comes, and 
from the end of June to St. Michael's Day 
(Sept. 29) live with their cattle high up on 
the mountain-tops, where there are built whole 
villages for the temporary residence of these 
summer shepherds and herdsmen. 

Strung along the valley of the Valira like 
very dingy pearls on an emerald chain, are the 
eight or ten villages in which lives nearly the 
entire population of Andorra. As the total 
inhabitants number barely 6,000, and a few 
hundred of these are scattered among a score 
or so of smaller hamlets, it may be imagined 
that even the principal towns are not very 
large. Indeed, the capital itself boasts of 
hardly 600 residents. 

There are some few modern buildings. In 
fact, each of the larger villages has two or three 
recently erected houses of stucco or dressed 
stone, with ornamental iron railings around 
the balconies. The typical Andorran resi- 
dences, however, are built of a dark, weathered 
native limestone, very roughly cut, with roofs 
of rusty blue slate; and, presumably to avoid 
encroaching upon the small area of arable land, 
are usually huddled together on the hillside, 

[85] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

some distance above the river. It is a serious 
business to transport fragile articles up the 
steep mountain trails on mule-back ; so it is not 
surprising to find that the poorer dwellings 
possess neither glass nor window frames, but 
are provided with heavy, solid shutters, which 
can be closed in bad weather. In the tobacco 
season, the railings of the balconies are covered 
with large bunches of the leaves, which are 
hung out to be cured in the sun. Houses and 
stables are as a rule inextricably run together. 
The churches are such plain, rude structures 
that at first I mistook them for abandoned 
ruins. Indeed, as you view any of the smaller 
Andorran hamlets from a distance, the rough 
walls and dark, unglazed windows give it the 
appearance of a deserted village. But in spite 
of the unpaved, muddy streets, there is a nota- 
ble lack of the obtrusive uncleanliness of some 
of the smaller towns of southern France; for 
the numerous torrents which pour into the 
Valira provide a splendid natural system of 
sanitation, while the drinking water is nearly 
always piped down from some high, pure 
spring in the rocks above the village. 

About four miles down the Valira del Orien 
from Soldeu, we passed Canillo. The village 

[86] 




SAN JUAN DE CANILLO 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



lies in a rounded hollow some distance up the 
hillside, but, most picturesquely situated on a 
narrow little ridge between the bridle-path and 
the river, is the ancient Church of San Juan, 
which is said to have been founded during the 
days of the Roman Empire. The afternoon 
was growing late and we had yet far to go; 
so we did not stop to see the church stove, 
which, I am told, is built into the under portion 
of the pulpit. Presumably there is at least 
one priest in Andorra who delivers heated 
sermons ! 

A little way below Canillo is the small but 
renowned pilgrimage chapel of our Lady of 
Meritxell, who, according to the official decla- 
ration of the government of the Republic, 1 
"has from time immemorial been considered by 
the Valley of Andorra as its special patron 
and protector." To her in time of danger the 
herdsmen cry — "God and our Lady of Mer- 
itxell guard the cattle of Andorra!" 

There are many other signs of religious in- 
terest along our road: tiny, almost cell-like 
wayside chapels, roughly shaped wrought-iron 
crosses set up at prominent points among the 
rocks, little grilled boxes with brightly dressed 

i Deliberations of the General Council, Oct. 24, 1875. 

[87] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

saints or relics in them, nailed to wooden posts. 
These are all crude and poor, and of rough 
craftsmanship; but then the whole country is 
poor, and the absence of rich display in connec- 
tion with the mountain shrines does not indi- 
cate any lack of real devotion. 

The bridle-path, which all along had seemed 
as bad as possible, now began to grow worse. 
At its best, it was only a narrow line of trodden 
earth between the steep slope down to the river 
and the retaining wall of the first hillside ter- 
race; and it required very careful maneuver- 
ing to pass any animal which might be coming 
from the other direction. Once we turned a 
sharp corner and saw approaching us a mule — 
at least, we supposed that it was a mule — 
which was almost completely hidden under an 
enormous bale of hay. I thought that there 
was room to squeeze past the hay ; but my horse 
disagreed with me. The next moment I was 
standing in the road and he on top of the 
terrace, with his hoofs almost on a level with my 
head. But hardly had the mule passed and I 
begun to wonder how I should ever get the 
horse down again without breaking his legs, 
before he jumped back into the path with the 
agility of a mountain goat. 

[88] 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



When we entered the wild and uninhabited 
Gorge of Encamp, the trodden earth gave 
place to a very steep, stone trail, sometimes 
paved with uneven boulders and sometimes 
passing over glassy slopes of shelving rock. 
Traveling up-hill was tiresome ; when we went 
down-hill over these slippery slabs of rock, 
with thin sheets of water trickling over them, 
we took our feet out of the stirrups, so as to be 
ready for a fall, and our more cautious guide 
dismounted and led his horse. But the gran- 
deur of the gorge more than repaid us for the 
rough going. We were now high above the 
Valira. On our side, the ground sloped away 
so rapidly that we could only see the river now 
and then, as we looked back up a bend of the 
gorge. On the other side of the stream there 
was a precipitous cliff four or five hundred feet 
high. Where the river was visible, it rushed 
between its rocky walls like a great mill-race. 
Sometimes it tumbled over cataracts which, 
even viewed from so high above, were wonder- 
fully beautiful. What they must appear to 
one who could climb down the canon walls and 
stand by the very edge of the raging torrent, 
we could only imagine. I have heard of milk- 
white cataracts; the onlv one I have ever seen 

[89] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

was here. It was, literally, as white as if it 
had been pure milk. 

Tennyson might almost have had in mind 
this very valley when, just after his visit to the 
Pyrenees, he described the Lotus Eaters as 
dwelling in — 

"A land of streams ! Some like downward smoke, 
Slow dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; 
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, 
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. 
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow 
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, 
Three silent sentinels of aged snow 
Stood sunset-flushed; and, dew'd with showery drops, 
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse." 

The picture is complete, even to the ' 'three 
mountain-tops," which rise prominently around 
the source of the Valira! 

An Indian would surely name Andorra "The 
Land of the Big Noise." The roar of the 
river varies in volume and pitch; but you 
hardly ever escape from the dull, heavy under- 
tone which vibrates so incessantly beneath 
the higher splashing of the tributary torrents. 
Sometimes the noise was so loud that I found 
it difficult to converse with the rider just in 

[90] 



^iSffiJflfe^ 













A CASCADE NEAR SOLD'EU 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



front of me; and only once or twice, when an 
overhanging shoulder of rock intervened be- 
tween us and the river, did we notice, almost 
with a start of surprise, that we had lost the 
song of the Valira. 

The village of Encamp, just below the 
gorge, not only seems the best-built settlement 
in the country, but it has the added distinction 
of lying along the beginning of a real high-road 
— the only one in the Valley. We had ex- 
pected to visit the Syndic, or President of An- 
dorra, who resides here; but unfortunately his 
Excellency was not at home. Undoubtedly he 
was hard at work getting in his hay, like all the 
other citizens of the Republic. 

Ten miles south of Soldeu, the Valira del 
Orien and Valira del Nort come together in a 
little basin of land about a square mile in area, 
which is the largest single piece of fertility in 
the entire country. At the upper end of this 
central depression is the town of Las Escaldas, 
which, as its name implies, possesses a number 
of "hot springs" of sulphurated water. At the 
lower end is the capital city, Andorra la Vella. 
Five miles further down the river is San Julia, 
the most Spanish in appearance of Andorran 
communities, and the great shopping town and 

[91] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

historic smuggling center of the Valley. Then 
comes another very narrow gorge and, prob- 
ably without noticing it, the traveler rides 
through a little brook which runs across the 
road — and, behold, he has passed the border 
and is in Spain. 

It was half -past eight of a very dark night 
when we reached Las Escaldas. We had 
been traveling since seven in the morning, and 
had been in the saddle for nine hours ; up and 
down, we had covered a vertical distance of 
considerably over 10,000 feet; we had been 
drenched to the skin, and our clothing was still 
damp enough to make us shiver when the even- 
ing breeze struck us. I have ridden longer 
at a stretch; but I have never felt more ex- 
hausted than when, stiff and saddle-sore and 
famished, we fairly tumbled off our horses at 
Las Escaldas, and then looked up disconso- 
lately to see what kind of a hovel was to be our 
lodging place for the night. 

And to our surprise and delight, it was a 
well-built, modern-looking hotel, in front of 
which stood a neatly dressed gentleman, who 
welcomed us in fluent French. 1 

i In a book of travel published so recently as 1911, the au- 
thor begins his chapter on Andorra with the absurd state- 

[92] 




LA'S ESCALDAS 



THE HIDDEN VALLEY 



I judge that Dr. Francisco Pla is one of the 
most cultured citizens of the Valley. He is a 
member of the national parliament, has studied 
at a French university, has been sent to 
Paris as a special delegate from Andorra to 
the protecting Republic, and himself speaks 
French with a pronunciation which is better 
than that of many residents of the neighboring 
Departments of France. For three days this 
traveled, broadly educated gentleman put him- 
self unreservedly at our service. Whether we 
wanted hot water, or extra candles, or meals 
at unusual hours, or information about the in- 
dustrial and political conditions of Andorra, 
Dr. Pla never failed us. For all this, he 
charged us each ninety cents a day; and, as 
he carefully explained in advance, there were 
absolutely no tips expected. We did, however, 
give a few cents for candy to his bright little 
daughter, Sarah Bernhardt. 

ment that there are no inns in the country; after which he 
glosses over the fact that he stopped at one in the very first 
village he came to, and tells us that at Las Escaldas he was 
"entertained at the home of Dr. P1&" — said "home" being a 
four-story hotel! This is a fair sample of the disingenuous 
striving after the unusual and dangerous, which unfortunately 
mars nearly all of the few brief descriptions of the country 
which are accessible to the English reader. 



[93] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

The hotel was severely plain, even bare, in its 
furnishings, with no carpets on the floors and 
no superfluous appointments; but it proved to 
be immaculately and restfully clean. Late as 
was the hour of our arrival, there was soon 
ready for us a supper of delicious trout, fresh 
from the Valira. Then we retired to our 
plain, neat rooms, and stretched our weary 
bodies on soft, double mattresses. 

A crucifix hung at the head of the bed, a sim- 
ple traveler's prayer in Spanish was tacked to 
the door, the crisp, cool mountain air blew in 
through the open window, and just outside, the 
Andorran river rushed past the wall with a 
deep, steady roar which fairly wrapped itself 
around us as we drifted down through the 
eternal anthem of the Valley into a dead, 
dreamless sleep. 



[94] 



VII 

THE SILENT PEOPLE 

IN the language of nearby Spanish Cata- 
lonia, "Andorran" has two meanings. To 
speak of land as "Andorran" implies that it is 
hopelessly sterile; to call a person an "Andor- 
ran" signifies that he is silent and secretive. 
One very popular story, which is related with 
varying details, tells how a Spanish student, 
when translating the Vulgate account of how 
Christ refused to answer the high priest's ques- 
tions, rendered the text "Jesus held his peace," 
as "Jesus played the Andorran." According 
to another version of the anecdote, it was a 
preacher who remarked, "You see, our Sav- 
iour was an Andorran!" 

This reputation for taciturnity is well de- 
served. The Englishman is a hopeless chatter- 
box alongside of the Andorran. I do not 
remember that a single native spoke to me be- 
fore I addressed him, even in passing saluta- 
tion. If I wished a fellow-traveler Good Day, 
he would walk on two or three steps past me, 
and then finally answer with a tardy but polite 

[95] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

"Bon dia/ J When I asked for information, it 
was promptly and cheerfully given. But the 
Andorran never began the conversation, and he 
always stopped talking the minute I did. 

Over in southern France every chance ac- 
quaintance was bubbling over with curious 
inquiries as to why we were traveling so far, 
and how much it cost, and flattering exclama- 
tions concerning the fabulous salaries which the 
people of the United States must earn, that 
they could afford to spend such large sums on 
mere pleasure journeys. But, strange as an 
American must have seemed in this little- 
traveled country, nobody — not even the shop- 
keepers or the children — thought of asking 
where we came from or where we were going, 
or what we were doing in Andorra. And, so 
far as we could tell, they did not gossip about 
us to each other. Perhaps a couple of tourists 
from the Western Hemisphere did not seem 
so very important to people whose ancestors 
were enjoying a republican form of govern- 
ment, in the midst of mountains two miles 
high, a thousand years before the signing of 
the Declaration of Independence. 

This invincible taciturnity of the Andorrans 
soon gains your respect. You feel that they 

[96] 



THE SILENT PEOPLE 



are so undemonstrative, not because they are 
churlish, but because, for all their poverty and 
illiteracy, they have the instincts of gentlemen. 
In their intercourse with occasional strangers, 
they strike the difficult mean between surly 
indifference and impertinent inquisitiveness 
better than any other race among whom I have 
traveled. They have the dignity and native 
courtesy of the Arabs, without the Arabic 
loquaciousness and prying curiosity. I can- 
not imagine even the most arrogant Anglo- 
Saxon globe-trotter patronizing the Andor- 
rans. 

We saw a good many comely young peasant 
women, who, in most parts of the world, would 
have returned our curious glances with a coy, 
embarrassed smile. Here they met our eyes 
with a frank, very mildly interested look, and 
did not smile. In every other country which 
I have visited, even in Mohammedan lands, the 
lower classes are passionately fond of having 
their pictures taken. Here, if I asked two or 
three people to pose together for a photograph, 
they would do it in a grave, polite manner, 
without striking conceited attitudes, and then 
would go promptly about their business. And 
there was never a crowd of meddling idlers to 

[97] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

get in the way. Only one person asked me to 
take her picture — a child of six. Only one 
refused to pose for me. She was a very at- 
tractive girl of eighteen or twenty, who resisted 
all the pleadings of ourselves and our Andorran 
friends. 

They never even hinted for tips. One hotel- 
keeper told me in advance not to give any 
pourboires, and another refused the gratuity 
which was offered him. When I pressed a lit- 
tle tobacco-money on two picturesque old men 
who had posed before my camera, they finally 
deigned to accept it, with such a grand air that 
I felt as if I had been trying to patronize 
Gladstone and Bismarck. When we gave a 
group of children five cents with which to buy 
candy, the boys and girls moved off to the shop 
in as orderly a manner as if they had been go- 
ing to church. One little fellow of six or 
seven did, indeed, ask me for a sou as we rode 
past him. I just laughed; and the other chil- 
dren with him appreciated the joke, and poked 
such fun at the poor boy that he slunk off in 
a very shamefaced way. 

While the ordinary garments of civilized 
Europe are now usually worn in Andorra, you 
still see quite frequently the costume of Cata- 

[98] 



THE SILENT PEOPLE 



Ionia, with the broad sash, short vest-like jacket, 
and bright red "liberty cap," whose long, soft 
tip, falling over one eye, gives the wearer a very 
nonchalant and independent air. The women 
favor the shawl or mantilla for a head-dress, 
but do not arrange it with the coquettish grace 
of the ladies of Spain. Cloth sandals, with 
thick soles of hard, woven hemp, are almost 
universally worn by the peasants, as well as by 
wise pedestrians; for this is the only foot-gear 
which gets a satisfactory grip on the smooth 
rocks or stony paths of the mountains. The 
best quality can be bought at Andorra la Vella 
for forty cents a pair, and they do not wear out 
as quickly as one might expect. 

In appearance, the Andorrans resemble their 
Catalan ancestors. They are a swarthy race, 
short in stature, especially for mountaineers, 
and have sloping shoulders and long, muscular 
arms; but otherwise they are well- formed and 
graceful, with small hands and feet, and very 
small heads. The women of middle-age, like 
farmers' wives everywhere, are apt to be bent 
and worn with toil; but the very old people, 
both men and women, are worthy of a Rem- 
brandt's brush. Their calm, deeply lined faces 
show all the wisdom and kindliness and content 

[99] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

which multitude of years should bring, and yet 
are as firm and inscrutable as the rocks of the 
Pyrenees. You do not think of them as old 
folks who are going to die quite soon. They 
just have lived for a long, long time, and here 
they are — like Andorra itself. 

We did not notice a single fat person; and 
it is no wonder that the Andorrans are lean, 
for they must labor incessantly to scrape a liv- 
ing from their narrow valley. We saw men, 
and women, too, working in the fields before 
daybreak ; and long after sunset we could make 
out their bent, toiling forms through the gath- 
ering dusk. 

Nobody is rich in Andorra, according to the 
usual standards of wealth. The plutocrat of 
the Valley is a cattle-owner who is reputed to 
be worth $20,000. But, on the other hand, no- 
body is wretchedly poor. The country has no 
beggars or tramps. Like their fellow-moun- 
taineers of Scotland and Switzerland, these 
people are said to be very cautious in their 
spending of money ; but if the Andorran turns 
a penny over a good many times before he 
parts with it, this is because pennies are very 
scarce in the Valley and must be made to go as 
far as possible. While the Andorrans are 

[100] 



THE SILENT PEOPLE 



noted for their frugality, they also bear an en- 
viable reputation for charity and hospitality. 

The language of the country is a dialect of 
Catalan, which is closely related to the Proven- 
cal. On account of the commercial intercourse 
with Seo de Urgel and Barcelona, however, 
many of the Andorrans understand Spanish; 
and in every large village there are a few peo- 
ple who speak enough French for the purposes 
of trade. 

As to religion, the Andorrans are all Ro- 
man Catholics; and they are very devout. 
Those with whom I conversed about ecclesiasti- 
cal matters did not seem even to have heard 
of the recent anti-Catholic movements in 
France and Spain. They are temperate in 
their use of the light French and Catalonian 
wines, and they are notable for the purity of 
their homes. Throughout the length of the 
Valley a drunken man or an unchaste woman 
is almost unknown. The last fact is doublv 

mi 

creditable, because poverty prevents large 
numbers of them from ever marrying. In 
order to preserve the little homesteads intact, 
the younger sons and daughters observe the 
patriarchal custom of dwelling indefinitely with 
the family of the married heir. This is doubt- 

[101] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

less the chief reason why the population of the 
country has remained practically stationary 
since the beginning of its history. 

My own experience with the Andorrans con- 
firmed what I had heard about their reputation 
for honesty; for I met with not the slightest 
attempt at extortion, and when once I acci- 
dentally overpaid a shop-keeper, he entered 
into a long explanation in labored French as 
to why he must give me back two and a half 
cents. At another time a man worked half an 
hour trying to remove some grease-spots from 
my friend's coat, and then absolutely refused 
to take any payment for his trouble. 

A hundred and fifty years ago, one of their 
most renowned scholars published a compila- 
tion of the traditional maxims which should 
govern the ideal Andorran life. I believe that 
there are fifty-five of these rules, though I have 
not seen them; but it seems as though four 
would be considered sufficient by the modern 
inhabitant of the Valley. These four would 
be: Fear God, Live as closely as possible to 
Nature, Preserve the neutrality of the Repub- 
lic, and Keep your own counsel. The most 
striking characteristic of the Andorrans is their 
stolid conservatism. They heartily believe that 

[ 102 ] 



THE SILENT PEOPLE 



"whatever is, is right." They are very proud 
of their country; but evince no special desire 
to boast about it to others. They just want to 
be left severely alone. 1 

Lest, however, it should be thought that the 
Andorrans are incredibly and uninterestingly 
virtuous, it must be added that they are cunning 
cattle-dealers, and are past-masters of the gen- 
tle art of smuggling. Indeed, with the oppor- 
tunities which are fairly forced upon them, only 
a race of angelic beings could withstand the 
temptation to evade the customs duties between 
France and Spain. 

i In my impressions of the Andorran character, I agree sub- 
stantially with the French writers. In fact, I find passages 
in my letters which might have been quoted word for word 
from French books and periodicals, if it were not that I did 
not read these until after my return from Andorra. But to be 
quite fair, it should perhaps be added that some American 
and English observers have formed a less favorable opinion of 
the people of the Valley. A great deal depends upon the psy- 
chology of the traveler. If one starts out with the idea that 
every person who speaks an unknown tongue is a barbarian 
and a brigand, then the various incidents of the journey are apt 
to be unconsciously interpreted so as to fit in with the a priori 
conception. When a man, before entering Andorra, sees to it 
that his 38-Colt is in working order (I quote), it is no wonder 
that he perceives villainous-looking cut-throats along the road, 
beholds a "mob" of curious idlers following him through the 
streets, and views a local festival as an "orgy" ! 



[ 103 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

From time immemorial the Valley has been 
relieved from taxation upon certain of its ex- 
ports to both of the great nations which ad- 
join it, and these ancient exemptions have at 
different times been formally confirmed and 
defined. For instance, shortly after the 
northern protectorate was resumed under Na- 
poleon, a detailed list was prepared of the 
various Andorran products which might be 
introduced into France without paying the 
usual tariff on foreign importations. 

With these special privileges as a basis, An- 
dorra practiced smuggling almost officially, 
and the contraband trade became one of the 
most popular and lucrative occupations of the 
Republic. For, of course, whenever a consign- 
ment of goods or cattle chanced to be inter- 
cepted by the customs inspectors, these were 
among the number allowed under the tariff ex- 
emptions ! Concerning the presumably larger 
number of exportations which passed over the 
border unnoticed, the Andorrans wisely said 
nothing. And as to whether the merchandise 
came originally from Andorra or from France 
or Spain, who could say? 

Cattle and mules passed north or south 
through the Valley, according as the prices 

[ 104] 



THE SILENT PEOPLE 



were higher in one or other of the neighboring 
countries. Matches, which are a government 
monopoly in France, were smuggled over from 
Spain, and were even manufactured in An- 
dorra itself for this illicit export. Spanish 
cigars flooded the markets of southern France. 
A distinctively humorous touch was added 
when the canny Andorrans enriched them- 
selves by importing French tobacco into 
France! This was sold to Andorra, as to any 
other foreign nation, free of tax ; and then was 
brought back over the border, having paid 
neither import dues nor internal revenue, and 
the very farmers who raised the tobacco were 
undersold. 

It may be imagined that such constant eva- 
sion of customs duties was not especially 
popular among the involuntarily law-abiding 
peasants and manufacturers of France and 
Spain, who saw prices forced down through 
this unlawful competition. Indeed, many pro- 
tests were made by chambers of commerce and 
agricultural societies against the hardships 
which were caused, not only by downright 
smuggling, but by the legal exemptions them- 
selves. "Is Andorra a part of our country or 
not?" asked the bewildered Spanish farmers 

[105] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

and manufacturers. "If it is not a part of 
Spain, why should it be freed from the pro- 
tective tariff which operates against all other 
foreign countries? If it is in Spain, then our 
government should collect the customs at 
the northern border, between Andorra and 
France." Equally vehement protests came 
from the French Departments of the Pyrenees 
Orientales and Ariege. 

So, within recent years, the amount of 
French tobacco which may be bought by An- 
dorran merchants has been strictly limited to 
that which can presumably be consumed in the 
Valley itself; and all importations into France 
claiming exemption from duty must now be 
accompanied by "certificates of origin," which 
guarantee that they are bona fide Andorran 
products. Spain has at different times re- 
called entirely the immemorial exemptions, 
granted them again, once more recalled them, 
allowed them in a more modified and guarded 
form, and finally abolished them altogether ; so 
that there is no longer the almost unlimited 
free trade which formerly made possible an 
open and quasi-legal evasion of the tariff. 

The business of smuggling is, naturally, one 
concerning which it is difficult to obtain au- 

[ 106 ] 



THE SILENT PEOPLE 



thoritative statistics; but, judging from the 
continued protests which still issue from the 
French Department of the Pyrenees Orien- 
tates, the new restrictions have not entirety 
ended the contraband trade. The required 
"certificates of origin" are said to be had for 
the asking; and when all else fails, there still 
remain the numberless high pathways over 
the mountains, which the Andorran knows so 
well that he can find his way in the dark- 
est night. It is true that the border is sup- 
posed to be vigilantly patrolled by guards ; but 
their number is insufficient, and friendly mists 
are frequent. Then, too, Spanish soldiers are 
not always inalterably opposed to adding an 
occasional friendly gift to their meager wages. 
The story may not be true, however, that at 
one time the residence of the mayor of a Span- 
ish border town was used as a depot for smug- 
gled goods. If worst comes to worst, and the 
quiet Andorran in the course of his apparently 
aimless ramble over the mountainous border, 
meets an inquisitive and incorruptible soldier, 
then there is nothing for it but to take to his 
heels and run the chance of a bullet in his back. 
But, fortunately, these customs guards are sel- 
lom good shots. 

[107] 



VIII 

THE HOUSE OF THE VALLEY 

IN the heart of Andorra, the general north 
and south trend of the valley is interrupted, 
and for a little while the river runs almost due 
west. As a result, you cannot see very far in 
any direction, and the sheltered vale seems to 
be entirely shut in by a steep wall of moun- 
tains. In contrast with the narrower, less 
fertile portions of the valley, not to speak of 
the rough rocks which rise above it, this district 
appears wonderfully rich and attractive. 
Even the river here loses for a while some- 
thing of its torrential character, and ripples 
softly between the gently rolling meadows. 
Ripe wheat and tobacco wave in the summer 
breeze. Between the fields are lines of wil- 
lows and oaks; and the tall, symmetrical 
cypresses which rise above the velvety surface 
of the grain give a well-kept, park-like char- 
acter to the scene. A circle of carefully built 
terraces surround the bottom-land, like the 
seats of an old amphitheater. Above these, 
the lower slopes of the mountains bear dark 

[108] 



THE HOUSE OF THE VALLEY 

evergreen forests, and even the bare rocks of 
the summits reflect the sunlight in deep, com- 
fortable colorings. I have seen valleys more 
majestic than this; but I remember none more 
beautiful and peaceful. The very wildness 
of the surrounding mountains gives an added 
touch of safety and contentment, just as the 
howling of the winter wind outside adds to the 
coziness of an open fireplace in the home. 
The sheltered vale, which appears so unex- 
pectedly among the Pyrenean summits, seems 
like a veritable Eden lying in the midst of 
primeval chaos. 

If the tradition is true that it was here that 
Louis le Debonaire defeated the Moors, then 
this is one of the world's great, decisive bat- 
tlefields. On a hillside, near the center of the 
valley, there is shown the ruin of a couple of 
hovels, known as the Mas del Dumenje; and 
it is said that this marks the spot where the 
victorious Christian army was mustered after 
the battle. 

Las Escaldas lies just at the beginning of 
this central widening of the valley; near the 
lower, western end, set up prominently upon a 
great level ledge of rock at the foot of Mount 
Anclar, is Andorra la Vella — "Old Andorra." 

[109] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

This smallest of the world's capitals does not 
belie its name. It looks old ; as old as if it had 
been placed here when the mountains were first 
formed. 

At the upper end of the town, which you first 
enter coming from Las Escaldas, is the public 
square, with two of the biggest buildings in all 
Andorra, a gray old church, and a row of 
great, three-story sky-scrapers, with six or 
seven shops on their ground floors, and dark- 
eyed ladies sitting in the shade of the long awn- 
ings which hang over the iron railings of the 
upper balconies. To the church and moun- 
tains and pretty girls on the balconies, it is only 
necessary to add one or two gaily trapped 
mules and a few Andorran peasants with their 
rakish red caps, and you have a perfect setting 
for an opera — and it could almost be used full- 
size, on some of our larger stages. 1 Every- 
thing about the town is so tiny that you wonder 
afterwards why it did not strike you as more 
humorous. But somehow, while you are in the 
Valley, you do not feel like poking fun at this 
proud little nation. 

i The scene of at least one comic opera has actually been 
laid in Andorra. Le Vol d'Andorre, by F. Halevy (libretto 
by St. Georges), was presented in 1848 at the Opera Comique 
of Paris, where it had a very successful run. 

[no] 



THE HOUSE OF THE VALLEY 

After leaving the business quarter of An- 
dorra la Vella, you see no other modern build- 
ings ; although it is a ride of fully two minutes 
over the winding cobble-stone alleys before, at 
the other end of the town, you reach the parlia- 
ment house of the Republic. 

The Palace or House of the Valley, or the 
"Tribunal," as it seems to be more commonly 
called, is a severely plain, three-story structure, 
with few windows and a low gable roof. It is 
surmounted by a small, squat tower, and at one 
corner is affixed a bartizan turret shaped like 
a stone beehive. The building might be a 
warehouse or a barn or a pre-Revolutionary 
American college dormitory ; but no one would 
ever guess it to be a national Capitol. 

In judging the architectural merits of any 
government building, however, we must take 
into consideration its surroundings; and, in 
comparison with neighboring structures, the 
Tribunal is quite massive and imposing, while 
its location could not be improved upon. It 
stands on the farthest edge of the rocky shelf 
upon which the town is built, with a magnifi- 
cent outlook down the river, which now re- 
sumes again its southward course. On two 

sides there is an almost precipitous descent to 

[ill] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

the floor of the valley. Just back of the build- 
ing is an enormous boulder which overtops the 
Palace tower, and then there rise the abrupt 
rocky slopes of Mount Anclar. Upon second 
thought, you realize that, after all, this rude, 
heavy structure, set high above the valley 
against the rugged cliffs, is a fitting and digni- 
fied parliament house for a sturdy race of poor, 
hard-toiling mountaineers, whose one proud 
possession is their independence. 

After some searching, our guide found the 
janitor's daughter, who had the warm, soft 
beauty of the valley itself, but who, alas, was 
the one person in Andorra who obdurately re- 
fused to be photographed. The keys which 
she carried were formidable implements, the 
largest being nearly as long as her forearm; 
and it required considerable effort to spring 
the bolt of the heavy outer gate of the Palace 
yard. But, once this was opened, we stood im- 
mediately before the main, and so far as we 
saw, the only entrance to the building. Over 
the doorway is the inscription, "Domus Con- 
cilia Sedes Justitice" together with the na- 
tional coat-of-arms and the Latin quatrain, to 
which reference has been already made. 1 

i See page 31. 

[112] 



THE HOUSE OF THE VALLEY 

The basement of the Palace is used as a 
stable for the horses and mules of the represen- 
tatives. From here a dark, narrow stairway 
leads to the main floor, which is divided into 
three sections. The first of these is the paro- 
chial schoolroom, around whose walls runs an 
interesting series of frescoes representing 
scenes from the Crucifixion. The composition 
of these paintings is excellent, the features are 
lifelike and individual, and the details of 
muscle and drapery are indicated with a con- 
scientious minuteness which reminds one of 
Japanese art or the European religious paint- 
ings of the Middle Ages. I unfortunately 
made no attempt to find out whether these 
quaint frescoes date from the sixteenth cen- 
tury, when the building was erected. At first 
thought it seems as though they must be very 
old; but it may be that in art, as in so many 
other things, Andorra rests still under the 
spell of mediaeval days; and a comparatively 
few seasons of winter dampness, not to speak 
of the naturally destructive tendencies of 
schoolboys, would easily account for the pres- 
ent dilapidated appearance of the plaster on 
which the pictures are painted. 

The middle section of the main floor con- 

[113] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

tains the dining-room; for this is hotel as well 
as parliament house, and during sessions of the 
Council, the legislators lodge in the building, 
and sleep in the bedrooms on the top floor. 
The Andorran law-givers are evidently good 
trenchermen; for the refectory is the largest 
room in the building, and the kitchen just be- 
hind it contains cooking utensils of an astound- 
ing bigness. No ordinary range or fireplace 
is here; but a great, vaulted chimney opens 
above the very center of the room, and beneath 
this hang chains and hooks which could — and 
doubtless often do — carry an entire ox. I un- 
derstand that, when occasion arises, the honest 
councilors themselves are not averse to reliev- 
ing the tedium of routine business by taking 
turns at the cooking. 

In the third division is the council chamber. 
This is not so large as the dining-room — it is 
barely twenty feet long — and is furnished with 
severe simplicity. The ceiling is supported by 
roughly finished beams. In the thick front 
wall, one narrow window looks out across the 
valley to the mountains. In the center of the 
room is a small, square heating stove, whose 
tall pipe is slightly out of plumb. On the 
walls are two or three maps and a number of 

[114] 




The Council Chamber 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

faded enlargements of photographs of the 
councilors and viguiers and the Bishop of 
Urgel. Along two sides of the room are 
brown muslin curtains, beneath which hang the 
long black state robes and three-cornered 
beaver hats which members of the Council wear 
on formal occasions. A bare pine table, a 
couple of swinging oil-lamps, and two dozen 
shaky "kitchen chairs" complete the furnish- 
ings of the parliament chamber of the simplest 
of republics. Twenty dollars would probably 
cover the cost of everything in the room except 
the state robes. 

Built into one of the side walls of the coun- 
cil chamber is a massive oak cabinet, about 
five feet high, which is blackened by age and 
bound heavily with iron, whence presumably 
comes its popular name — the "Iron Cabinet." l 
Across the top is carved in black letter cap- 
itals the legend, aiaC^3^a^Cl3C9 

dob D©cas@aBiaca dob na© 

#a£L© D<£ a^D©i&Eta* Below 

this, the front of the cabinet is divided into six 
carved panels, three on either side, and down 

i It is apparently this popular name which has misled some 
otherwise keen observers into describing the front of the cabi- 
net as consisting of "a small iron door." 

[116] 




THE ENTRANCE TO THE CAPITOL 



THE HOUSE OF THE VALLEY 

the center are six keyholes, bearing the names 
of the six parishes into which the nation is 
divided: Canillo, Encamp, Ordino, Massana, 
Andorra and San Julia. The keys to these six 
locks are deposited with the senior councilors of 
the respective parishes ; so that the cabinet can 
be opened only in the presence of representa- 
tives of all districts of the Republic. The result 
has been that even the best-known students of 
Andorran history have found great difficulty 
in gaining access to the ancient documents 
which are preserved here. My friend, Dr. 
Pla, is one of these honored custodians of 
the archives; and I succeeded in getting him 
to pose for his photograph, holding in one hand 
the precious key — which, by the way, he kept 
under the marble top of his bureau — and in the 
other hand a fat Havana cigar, by means of 
which I had unlocked the good doctor's heart. 1 
At the rear of the council chamber a wide, 
slightly arched doorway opens to the tiny 
Palace chapel, which is dedicated to St. Er- 
mengol, who was Bishop of Urgel in the first 
half of the eleventh century. Except for the 
dilapidated frescoes in the schoolroom, the 
chapel is the only part of the building which 

i See illustration facing page 98. 

[117] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

lays claim to any beauty of furnishings and 
adornment. It is tastefully, though not ex- 
pensively, decorated in blue and gold ; and sev- 
eral religious paintings hang upon its walls. 
Simple as are these decorations and common- 
place as are the pictures, the contrast between 
this room and the rest of the building is strik- 
ing and is surely significant. It seems as if 
the Republic said, " Though even the chamber 
where my citizens gather to exercise the high- 
est human power of self-government may be 
dim and unadorned, yet here, where they kneel 
to ask the divine blessing on their beloved coun- 
try, shall there be lavished all the beauty which 
it is in their poor power to furnish." 



[lis] 



IX 

TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

ON the front of the episcopal residence at 
Seo de Urgel is an inscription which des- 
ignates the bishop as "Sovereign Prince of the 
Valley of Andorra." 

Above the doorway of the little chapel in the 
Palace at Andorra la Vella is a painting of the 
Last Supper, which bears in French the fol- 
lowing inscription — 

"Presented in the year 1895 by the Presi- 
dent of the French Republic, co-prince of 
Andorra, in testimony of his sentiments of 
willing protection and friendship toward the 
population of the Valley. M. Felix Faure, 
President of the French Republic." 

In order to understand correctly the relation 
between the Valley and these "co-princes," 
however, we must remember that Andorra, as 
it has been well put, is a fragment remaining 
from the wreck of feudalism. A map of 
mediaeval Europe shows a multitude of small 
independent or semi-independent states, al- 

[119] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

most all of which have since been absorbed by 
the growth of a few powerful modern nations. 
Thus Burgundy and Toulouse are now indis- 
tinguishably merged in the French Republic; 
Lombardy and Sicily and Venice are parts of 
the Kingdom of Italy; and a host of smaller 
sovereignties are united in the German Em- 
pire. 

Only four of the ancient little states of Eu- 
rope have escaped this general process of 
coalition and absorption. These are the prin- 
cipalities of Monaco and Liechtenstein, and 
the republics of San Marino and Andorra. Of 
the four, Andorra is the oldest, the largest in 
area, the smallest in population, the least 
easily accessible, and the most out of touch with 
the modern world. 1 

i Monaco has an area of 8y 2 square miles and a population 
of 15,000; San Marino, 38 square miles, population 10,000; 
Liechtenstein, 65 square miles, population 9,500; Andorra, 175 
square miles, population about 6,000. The Republic of San 
Marino is commonly referred to as the oldest state in Europe; 
but its claim to have had a continuous political existence since 
its foundation by St. Marinus in the fourth century is hardly 
to be considered seriously. The independence and republican 
form of government of San Marino seem to have been only 
gradually evolved during the Middle Ages, several centuries 
later than the date of the earliest authentic record of the or- 
ganization of the Valley of Andorra as a political unit. 

[ 120] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

Thus Andorra is a lonely survival of mediae- 
val feudalism, a political anachronism which it 
is impossible to classify exactly under the 
nomenclature of the twentieth century. It is 
neither a principality nor a republic, as we 
ordinarily understand these terms. Strictly 
speaking it is a seigneury, though the age of 
seigneuries has long passed. 1 It is a self- 
governing state, but it is not a sovereign state. 
It lacks what is known as "external sover- 
eignty," that is, it has no diplomatic relations 
with other nations. In its internal affairs, 
also, it has largely relinquished one other sover- 
eign function, the administration of justice. 

Yet the President of France and the Bishop 
of Urgel are not "sovereigns" of Andorra, in 
any modern sense of the word. They are 
rather feudal over-lords who, for a nominal re- 
turn, guarantee the autonomy of a practically 
independent and self-governing state. 

France now receives from Andorra, through 
the Prefect of the Pyrenees Orientales, 2 a 
biennial tribute of $394. The Bishop of 

i In 1892 the French post-office cut the Gordian knot con- 
cerning the proper designation of the country by deciding to 
call it simply (i Les Valines d'Andorre." 

2 Before the year 1806, the Prefect of the Ariege. 

[121] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Urgel, however, receives every second year 
only $180. But, on the other hand, the bishop 
is more favored than the president, in that at 
Christmas time he is given by each of the 
six parishes two fine hams, two choice cheeses 
and two fat capons. The various ecclesiastical 
tithes and taxes which were reserved to the 
bishop by the Concordat of 1278 have one by 
one been done away with, and the support of 
the state church is now a regular item in the 
Andorran budget. 

The direct influence of the joint protector- 
ate is exercised through two deputies known as 
"viguiers," * who jointly preside over the judi- 
cial administration and, more generally, act as 
representatives of the non-resident suzerains. 
The French viguier is appointed for life. Be- 
fore 1884, he was required to be a citizen of 
the Department of the Ariege, but since then 
he has been chosen from the Pyrenees Orien- 
tates. The representative of the bishop is al- 
ways a native Andorran, and is named for a 
term of three years. Both of these officers, 
however, enjoy the esteem of the inhabitants of 
the Valley for the faithfulness with which they 
perform their constantly more nominal duties. 

i See footnote, page 26. 

[ 122 ] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

Since 1884, the powers of the French Presi- 
dent over Andorra have been permanently 
delegated to the Prefect of the Department of 
the Pyrenees Orientales; and the military 
governor of Urgel acts as commissioner of the 
Spanish government in its relations with the 
mountain republic. 

Each viguier appoints a native "bayle," * or 
judge of civil causes, who is chosen from a 
selected list of nominees, one from each parish, 
which is presented by the Andorran General 
Council. The bayles may call upon the citi- 
zens for whatever assistance, even to armed 
force, may be necessary for carrying their de- 
cisions into effect. There is also a non-resi- 
dent judge of appeals, who is appointed alter- 
nately by the two suzerains. After reading 
the necessary papers, which are sent to him by 
the bayle, this judge must come to Andorra to 
render his decisions, from which a further ap- 

i See footnote, page 26. It will be noted that the appoint- 
ment of the bayles, originally made by the suzerains (see page 
26 and Appendix II), is now delegated to their viguiers, who 
are also charged with the administration of the judicial system, 
and share with the bayles the actual trial of cases. It is hardly 
correct, however, to say that the modern "viguier" is the same 
as the mediaeval "bayle." There has been apparently a grad- 
ual transference of functions, rather than an exchange of titles. 

[ 123 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

peal may be taken, at the choice of the appel- 
lant, 1 either to the Episcopal Court of Seo de 
Urgel, or to a special French court for the 
hearing of Andorran cases, which was estab- 
lished in 1888. This Tribunal Superieur 
d'Andorre consists of the President of the 
Civil Tribunal of Perpignan (where the sit- 
tings are held), the French viguier, and three 
other judges; 2 and, as exercising the delegated 
powers of the President of the French Repub- 
lic, its judgments are final. Appeals from the 
decisions of the bayles, however, are so infre- 
quent that during the first seven years after its 
institution, the court at Perpignan had occa- 
sion to meet only twice. 

Criminal causes are passed upon by the 
viguiers. From their decisions there is no 
appeal; and justice is administered with un- 
usual promptness and equity, because the very 

i Cases originally tried before the French bayle have fre- 
quently been appealed to the episcopal tribunal, and vice versa. 

2 The admirable wisdom with which this court has invariably 
been constituted is shown by its membership in 1904: Mm. 
Casteil, President of the Civil Tribunal of Perpignan; Charles 
Romeu of Prades, the French viguier; Grillere, Vice-President 
of the Council of the Department of the Pyrenees Ori- 
entales, Delcros, lawyer and senator; and Brutails, one of 
the foremost authorities on Andorran history and govern- 
ment. 

[ 124] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

absence of statute law allows each case to be 
adjudged strictly upon its own merits. Minor 
charges are disposed of directly by the resident 
Andorran viguier. If the seriousness of the 
offense warrants it, he calls upon the French 
viguier for advice and, in exceptional cases, a 
formal court is constituted which is known as 
the "Tribunal des Corts? 3 This consists of 
the two viguiers, assisted by the judge of ap- 
peals, who votes only in case the viguiers dis- 
agree as to the verdict, and by two native 
rahonadors, who are appointed by the General 
Council to see that judgment is rendered in 
accordance with the traditions and precedents 
of Andorra. For the viguiers are bound 
by neither French nor Spanish legal codes, but 
only by the immemorial usages of the Valley. 1 
Cases are prepared for trial by the bayles, who 
act as prosecuting attorneys. 

There is only a very small, insecure and ap- 
parently infrequently tenanted prison cell at 
the capital; for convicted prisoners are sent to 
France to serve their terms of sentence. Seri- 

iBy direction of the French Government, M. Brutails, 
keeper of records of the Department of the Gironde, is now 
engaged upon a codification of the precedents and usages of 
Andorra. 

[125] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

ous offenses are very rare, however, and it 
speaks well for the peaceful and law-abiding 
character of the people, that during the twenty 
years preceding 1907, there had been but two 
Andorran convicts in the French penal settle- 
ments. In the still more rare event of a sen- 
tence of death being pronounced, a Spanish 
executioner is called to the capital, where he 
puts the criminal to death by means of a gar- 
rote which is kept in the Tribunal. 

The two most impressive ceremonies of the 
Republic are the installation of a newly ap- 
pointed French viguier and the reception of a 
new Bishop of Urgel. 1 

The French viguier, as it were, wears a halo ; 
a stranger to the country and coming here only 
at rare intervals, he enjoys a prestige far be- 
yond that of his Andorran colleague. Does 
it come to pass that he ceases to exercise his 
functions, the Republic awaits the nomination 
of his successor with breathless interest; and 
the greatest solemnity marks the installation of 
the new incumbent. 

When the recently appointed viguier indi- 
cates his desire to be formally installed into 

i The following description is translated rather freely from 
Vidal's L'Andorre. 

[126] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

office, the General Council gathers in the 
Palace of the Valley upon the appointed day. 
On this occasion, the members of the august 
assembly wear their ceremonial costume — 
silver-buckled slippers, blue worsted stockings 
fastened below the knee with red garters, short 
gray trousers, red sash, long coat of black cloth 
lined with red and having turned-over cuffs 
and collar of crimson; also a large black 
cocked-hat, ornamented with braid. 

As soon as it is learned that the viguier has 
arrived at the capital, the Andorran senate 
sends two of its members to the house where he 
is staying. Upon reaching this house, the two 
deputies, in the name of the Council, kiss the 
viguiers hands; then, one at his right and 
the other at his left, they accompany him to the 
Palace, followed by a procession of his relatives 
and friends, who have come to witness the in- 
stallation ceremony. 

In the vestibule of the great hall of delib- 
erations, the viguier is received by a second 
deputation of four councilors, who conduct 
him to the chapel, where they kneel together 
for a moment. Then he is led into the council 
hall, where the place of honor, beside the 
syndic, is of course reserved for the repre- 

[127] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

sentative of the co-prince. As he enters, all 
the members of the Council rise and remove 
their hats, and they remain standing until he 
has taken his seat. 

When everyone is once more seated, the 
viguier rises again, and presenting his certifi- 
cate of appointment, asks to be put in actual 
possession of the office and authority with 
which the co-prince has invested him. In the 
name of the Council over which he presides, the 
syndic answers that he is ready to do this, pro- 
vided that the viguier will follow the precedent 
set by his predecessors, and will swear to re- 
spect and defend the privileges and customs of 
the Valley. 

The viguier, clothed in a black dress-coat 
whose standing collar is embroidered with olive 
branches, his sword by his side, holding in his 
left hand his black-plumed hat, and with his 
right hand placed on the Holy Gospels which 
are opened before him, now swears "to render 
good and loyal justice, and to respect the 
privileges of the Republic." The syndic then 
inducts him into his new office, asking God that 
he may long exercise its duties for the greatest 
welfare of the Valley. 

After this, the whole company passes into 

[ 128 ] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

the adjoining room, where there awaits them a 
veritable holiday banquet. 

When the day has come for the reception of 
a new Bishop of Urgel, the members of the 
General Council and other distinguished citi- 
zens of the Valley hasten to a common ren- 
dezvous at Andorra la Vella. To intensify 
the splendor of the occasion, everyone rides 
his finest mule, wears his most formal dress, 
and is followed by two servants, each of whom 
carries a carbine over his shoulder and a brace 
of pistols in his belt. 

In this formation, the squadron begins its 
march from the capital; it arrives at San Julia 
de Loria ; it crosses the village without halting, 
and hastens to the frontier of Spain, where it 
awaits his Eminence, who shortly afterwards 
appears on the horizon, surrounded by a bril- 
liant retinue. 

It is, indeed, a picturesque scene, when in this 
narrow, uncultivated gorge between the bare 
mountains, there meet these two groups of 
cavaliers in holiday attire. On the one side are 
the thick-maned, gorgeously caparisoned An- 
dalusian horses; on the other, the mules of 
Andorra, decked with their beautiful scarlet 
trappings. In the Andorran cortege, the dark 

[ 129 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

cloaks and black cocked-hats of the councilors 
are in striking contrast with the red caps and 
sashes of the notables of the Valley. In the 
other group there is a similar contrast between 
the long cassocks of the cathedral canons, and 
the elegant uniforms of the Spanish military 
staff. 

When the bishop's horse has reached the 
very edge of the brook which forms the bound- 
ary between the two countries, the companies 
on both sides of it dismount. The syndic ad- 
vances to his Eminence, kisses the episcopal 
ring and, in the name of the entire Valley, bids 
him welcome. After this the second syndic, 
the Andorran viguier, the councilors and the 
notables make in their turn respectful saluta- 
tions; and, while this first act of homage is 
being rendered, the bayles order the armed 
servants to fire three salutes with their carbines 
and pistols. 

Soon everyone mounts his steed again, and 
they ascend the road up the valley. At San 
Julia, all the villagers, dressed in their Sunday 
clothes, are waiting to see his Eminence pass. 
The procession crosses the public square be- 
tween a double line of these pious admirers, 
and thence the journey is continued without 

[ 130] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

further interruption until the capital comes 
into view. 

At this moment, the bells ring merrily, the 
cure of Andorra la Vella comes forth from his 
church, surrounded by the other priests of the 
Valley, who, for this great day, have left their 
parishes and have come hither clothed in their 
richest vestments. Behind the clergy follows 
a long procession of the faithful, who strew 
the ground with flowers and leafy branches. 

When this company meets the approaching 
cortege at a wayside chapel just outside the 
city, the bishop takes in his hands a large 
silver cross, faces toward the devout assembly, 
and chants with them the Te Deum. Then 
the bells ring out their loudest peals, carbines 
and pistols are again discharged, and, from 
the top of a neighboring hill, two cannon add 
their joyous salvos to the celebration of the 
first visit of the suzerain; and when at last his 
Eminence reaches the church door and raises 
his hand to give the benediction, bells, car- 
bines, pistols, cannon, take up again their 
clamor more deafeningly than before. 

Upon leaving the church, the bishop takes 
his way to the Palace of the Valley, where 
there is prepared for him a simple wooden 

[131] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

throne at the back of the council chamber. 
When everyone has taken his place, a man 
dressed in a long, trailing robe pushes his way 
through the crowd to the steps of the throne, 
where he reads a Latin oration. The learned 
speaker begins by wishing the bishop wel- 
come; he then gives a short resume of the his- 
tory of the Valley, and finally, in the name 
of the General Council, requests his Eminence 
to be so good as to confirm the privileges of 
the Republic, and swear, as did his predeces- 
sors, to respect these and, if need be, defend 
them. 

The bishop now rises, takes the usual oath, 
and new bursts of applause apprise the 
crowds outside that their precious rights have 
again received official sanction. 

After this, the noble assembly adjourns to 
the great dining hall, where a bounteous repast 
is served. At the dessert, the syndic takes from 
the sideboard an antique coral cup, in which 
are thirty-five Catalan livres, in pieces of gold, 
silver and copper. "Monsignor," he says, pre- 
senting the cup to the bishop, "the Valley of 
Andorra offers you this small token of its sub- 
mission. May your Eminence deign to accept 
it, not considering the smallness of the amount, 

[ 132] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

but only the kindly sentiments of those who 
offer it." 

The bishop takes the cup, thanks the syndic, 
and requests him to distribute the money among 
the poor of the Valley. Then a last salute an- 
nounces the end of the feast; and the bishop 
and the other banqueters follow to their homes 
the local residents who are to entertain them for 
the night. 

Contrary to what we should have expected, 
considering the natural racial and commer- 
cial affiliations of Andorra, Spain has made 
little effort to increase her influence in the 
Valley, and the Bishops of Urgel, doubtless 
inspired by fear lest their own personal "sov- 
ereignty" over Andorra should be endangered, 
have consistently opposed anything which 
might prove a closer bond between the King- 
dom and the Republic. So, in spite of the 
honor which the good Catholics of the Valley 
freely render to the bishops as bishops, their 
influence as suzerains has been steadily on the 
wane during the last half century. 

In 1855 Bishop Caixal y Estrada took it 
upon himself to pardon a man who had been 
condemned to death by the Tribunal des Corts, 
and the country was at once thrown into com- 

[ 133 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

motion by this illegal interference. The 
bishop's viguier was forced to resign, a special 
session of the General Council was called, and 
a protest had been sent to Napoleon III., when 
the matter was unsatisfactorily settled by the 
convict dying of wounds received while he was 
resisting arrest. 

Ten years later, the same bishop desired to 
institute certain needed reforms in the Andor- 
ran government; but he issued his proposals 
in the form of the command of an absolute 
sovereign, and there followed two years of bit- 
ter strife, which the Valley remembers as the 
"Revolution." The syndic and members of 
the General Council, who, in any case would 
have opposed the proposed changes, resigned in 
a body. A newly elected Council was more 
favorable to the bishop's plans, but unwisely 
chose as syndic a man who had been unpleas- 
antly conspicuous through his support of the 
recent effort of a French syndicate to establish 
a gambling-house at Las Escaldas. He soon 
antagonized the majority of the councilors and 
was deposed. The bishop then appointed as 
viguier an Andorran who had been a leader in 
local riots, and threw into prison the delegates 
who came to protest against his usurpation of 

[134] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

power. Then there were new riots, the 
bishop's viguier was driven out of the country, 
and the syndic was banished. 

France finally intervened to free the impris- 
oned delegates and restore order. Where- 
upon the Andorrans themselves promptly and 
quietly passed the reform bill which had 
caused the disturbance! But it was twelve 
years before the bishop again had a viguier in 
the Valley. In view of the original northern 
suzerainty over Andorra, it is interesting to 
note that, during this critical period, the 
French viguier was the Viscount of Foix. 

By a papal bull of December 25, 1879, 
the successor of Bishop Caixal was author- 
ized to resume the exercise of his "sovereignty" 
over Andorra. But now the situation was 
further complicated by the unwise appoint- 
ment of a Protestant as French viguier, and 
also by a new project to exploit Las Escaldas 
as a combined watering-place and gambling 
center, under control of a French syndicate, 
and by an effort on the part of Spain to put 
down the interminable smuggling across the 
Andorran frontier. It is not to the credit of 
the bishop that his influence was conspicuously 
on the side of the smugglers and gamblers. 

[135] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

So much local opposition was aroused by the 
plan to force Andorra out of its ancient and 
cherished seclusion, that the country was 
brought to the verge of civil war between the 
conservative and radical parties. This was 
fortunately averted; however, through the 
presence of a batallion of French troops, 
which encamped on the frontier near L'Hos- 
pitalet until order was restored. 

The very next year, when the French gov- 
ernment attempted to establish telegraphic 
communication with Andorra, the Bishop of 
Urgel sent fifty men to cut down the telegraph 
poles, which had been erected without his per- 
mission. The consequence was that the An- 
dorrans had to wait ten years longer for their 
telegraph. In 1892 the General Council con- 
vinced the French Government of its interest 
in the project, by making an appropriation of 
$3,000, and the line was then completed as far 
as San Julia de Loria. In 1903, the bishop 
cooperated with the Andorran government in 
constructing a continuation of this line as far 
as the Spanish frontier. 

Having once become interested in modern 
improvements, the bishop suggested to the 
Andorran s that a telephone system should also 

[136] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

be installed, and put under the control of his 
parish cures. The General Council, however, 
refused to join him in this scheme. 

In 1894, the Andorran and Spanish govern- 
ments seemed at last upon the point of reach- 
ing a satisfactory agreement concerning the 
debated customs immunities, and a law was 
drawn up by members of the Spanish Parlia- 
ment which would have allowed the importa- 
tion of a limited amount of Andorran products 
under much the same terms which now govern 
their entrance into France. The Bishop of 
Urgel, however, appeared before the joint 
committee of the Senate and House and spoke 
against the bill with such effect that Spain 
withdrew all customs exemptions whatsoever, 
and the Andorrans found themselves subject 
to the maximum Spanish tariff against for- 
eign nations. This did not add to his Excel- 
lency's popularity in the Valley. 

At the same time the bishop issued an edict 
forbidding Andorra to hold negotiations with 
any other government, or to enter upon the 
construction of any public works without his 
express permission. The General Council 
thereupon drafted a letter to the pope, and is- 
sued a manifest on ''the Andorran Question," 

[137] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

in both of which the "sovereign" claims of 
the bishop were vigorously combated. "The 
only cause for these grave disturbances," says 
the manifest, "lies in the attempt of the last 
two bishops to impose themselves upon the 
Valley of Andorra as sovereign princes, bas- 
ing their claims upon documents nine hun- 
dred years old, of incomplete redaction and 
vague wording. ... A bishop, in his official 
capacity as head of the Diocese of Urgel, pub- 
licly inspires vexing measures which are des- 
tined to reduce to extreme misery the already 
poverty-stricken families of the Valley. And 
why? To force a 'Yes' which the lips may 
utter, but not the heart." 

The northern protector of Andorra has 
shown a Very different spirit from that of the 
recent domineering and intolerant Bishops of 
Urgel. The French government has invari- 
bly pursued a friendly policy toward the peo- 
ple of the Valley, and has made numerous ef- 
forts to conserve the resources of the country 
and improve local conditions. Internal dis- 
sensions have been put down in a firm, yet 
tactful and conciliatory manner; and at- 
tempted encroachments, even by French spec- 
ulators, have been promptly and emphatically 

[ 138 ] ' 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

suppressed. The introduction of a telegraph 
service has been already referred to; the pro- 
posed construction of the first Andorran 
wagon road will be mentioned in a later chap- 
ter. 

France has also taken an active interest in 
the educational system of Andorra, where now 
a large majority of the inhabitants are illiter- 
ate. An inspector of education is sent into 
the Valley every year — he had covered a panel 
of our bedroom door at Las Escaldas with his 
annual encomiums of Dr. Pla's hotel — and re- 
peated though not very successful efforts have 
been made to extend the knowledge of the 
French language. There are also several 
scholarships for Andorran students in French 
universities. It should be added that the onlv 
serious studies in Andorran history have been 
made by French scholars, who sometimes bit- 
terly assail one another's theories concerning 
the early history of the Republic, but who, as 
ardent republicans, express an exaggerated 
admiration for the little country which one of 
them calls "a veritable paradise of liberty, 
where there is no army, no taxes, no con- 
straint, and everyone is a king!" Translated 
into cold English, this does not sound strictly 

[139] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

true; but the underlying sentiment of friend- 
liness is unquestionably sincere, and is charac- 
teristic of all French writers on Andorran af- 
fairs. 

Political differences of opinion within the 
Valley itself hinge largely upon the question 
as to whether Urgel or France shall be relied 
upon as the more trusted adviser and protec- 
tor. Until comparatively recent years, the 
Spanish party was in the ascendency; but the 
reactionary policies of the bishops, as con- 
trasted with the sympathetic and active inter- 
est of France, have worked a great change 
in the attitude of Andorra toward its two 
suzerains, and since 1877 the French party has 
been dominant. In recording my own impres- 
sions, some allowance must be made for the 
fact that the natives probably took it for 
granted that my sympathies were with France, 
whose language I used exclusively in conver- 
sation with them ; but, from the inquiries which 
I was enabled to make, it seemed that these 
people of southern blood and speech showed a 
surprising friendliness toward the French Re- 
public. 

It can readily be seen that, so far as any ad- 
vantages are to be gained from the feudal. re- 

[ 140 ] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

lations with Urgel, and especially with France, 
Andorra has by far the better of the bargain; * 
and it is no wonder that the Andorrans them- 
selves were so disturbed when the French Rev- 
olution threatened to make them permanently 
independent of the great nation to the north 
of them. 2 

But, after all, the most important bearing 
of the divided suzerainty over Andorra has lain 
in the very jointness of the protectorate. It 
is, indeed, impossible to serve two masters ; and 
so the Valley has served neither ! But it is not 
impossible to have two defenders. If the Re- 
public had been left quite without relationship 
to a stronger power, or if that relationship 
had been with one alone, not even the pov- 
erty and inaccessibility of Andorra could have 
prevented it from sharing the fate of the other 
petty states of the Pyrenees, and being swal- 
lowed up long ago by either France or Spain. 

The strange combination of a proud spirit 
of independence and a naive mediaeval idea 

i In 1892, it was remarked, on the floor of the French Sen- 
ate, that, in return for an annual tribute of $192, France 
contemplated spending $2,200 on the Andorran telegraph line 
alone. 

2 See page 28. 

[141] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

that, in case of danger, it is only necessary to 
seek the aid of some feudal protector, is well 
exemplified by the earnest advice given to the 
Andorrans a hundred and fifty years ago by 
one of their most famous statesmen. 1 

"Let us not forget that, the neutrality of the 
Valley being its chief possession, its inhabi- 
tants should, if need arise, defend this with 
all their power, fearing neither labor nor fa- 
tigue. Nor should they weigh the expense; 
and if its preservation involves a journey to 
Paris, to Madrid, to Rome, or anywhere else, 
the only thing to do is to set out at once. 

"That is what our Andorran ancestors did in 
the old days. If the ministers of either France 
or Spain attempted to give them orders, they 

i Don Anton Fiter y Rossel was renowned for his learn- 
ing; and in 1748, when he was Bishop's viguier, he took ad- 
vantage of his official position to make a thorough study of 
the precious national archives in the council chamber. The 
result of his researches was embodied in an exhaustive though 
confused compendium of the official acts concerning Andorra. 
The original Catalan manuscript of the Politar, as it is called, 
is now jealously preserved in the Iron Cabinet; but the library 
of the French Ministry of Justice possesses an authentic copy, 
which was certified as correct in 1879 by the Syndic of An- 
dorra and the Prefect of the Ariege. My translation is taken 
from the French of Vidal. 

[ 142] 



TWENTIETH CENTURY FEUDALISM 

refused to obey. If some governor-general, 
intendant or commissioner menaced their coun- 
try with any molestation whatsoever, quickly 
they hurried to the great royal protectors of 
the Valley, and put in their hands the preser- 
vation of its independence. They never suf- 
fered their neutrality to be interfered with in 
the slightest degree, always inspired by the 
word of the Scripture: Qui spernit modica, 
paulatim decidet. 1 If these good fathers of 
our republic had made a single exception to 
this rule, and had obeyed once from a kindly 
desire to please one of their sovereigns, the 
next time there would have been danger that 
they would been have forced to obey against 
their wills. 

"Thus the fathers of the Vallev would 
neither permit nor allow the least act of sub- 
jection to anyone whatsoever, except to those 
ministers [i. e., the viguiers] who administer 
justice. Following the example of our fore- 
fathers, we also must use every means to pre- 
vent the slightest encroachment upon our neu- 
trality, realizing that, when such a matter as 

i "He that condemneth small things shall fall by little and 
little." — Ecclesiasticus 19:1. 

[ 143 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

this is concerned, no detail is so small as to be 
unimportant." 

It would be hard to find a better epitome of 
the spirit of the Valley. 



[144] 



X 

A MINIATURE REPUBLIC 

SO far as its internal affairs are concerned, 
Andorra has been from time immemorial 
an independent, self-governing state, 1 with all 
the political machinery of a microscopic re- 
public. The only sovereign right which has 
been surrendered is the administration of jus- 
tice, and, in this, the viguiers are bound to 
render their decisions in harmony with the 
customs and usages of the Valley. Neither 
France nor Spain has ever attempted to make 
laws for Andorra. 

There are three grades of governing bodies. 
The oldest of these are probably the councils 
of the six parishes, into which Andorra has 
been divided since at least as early as the year 
819. Each of these parochial councils is com- 
posed of twelve councilors and two executive 
officers known as "consuls." The latter are 
chosen by the council itself for terms of two 
years, at the expiration of which they con- 
tinue for two years longer as ordinary mem- 

1 See page 30. 

[ 145 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

bers. The other councilors are elected by viva 
voce vote of all caps de cam, or heads of fam- 
ilies over twenty- five years of age ; for there is 
no general manhood suffrage in Andorra, 
throughout whose internal administration we 
find many survivals of the patriarchal system, 
antedating even the feudal forms which control 
her external relations. 

Each parish, except Encamp, is divided into 
from two to eight "Quarters," which corre- 
spond roughly to our townships within a 
county. The "Council of the Quarter" in- 
cludes all heads of families, but is nevertheless 
far from being an unwieldy body, as a simple 
calculation shows that the average number of 
families in a Quarter is only about forty. 

The duties of these two lower bodies cor- 
respond to those of our town or village boards, 
except that there is not the sharp distinction 
between legislative, executive and judicial 
functions, which exists under English and 
American law. The parish councils, for in- 
stance, directly exercise police and judicial 
powers over minor delinquencies within their 
jurisdiction. 

The General Council, or "Council of the 
Valley," or "Council of the Twenty-four," is 

[146] 



A MINIATURE REPUBLIC 

composed of four representatives from each 
parish, two of whom are elected each year for a 
term of two years. Prior to the electoral re- 
forms of 1866, the acting and last-retired con- 
suls of the parochial councils were ex officio the 
members of the General Council; but now the 
consuls are not even eligible for election to the 
national body. These twenty-four councilors, 
who are addressed as "Very Illustrious," are, 
like the parish officers, chosen by the heads of 
families. The candidate for councilor must 
himself be head of a family, thirty years of 
age, engaged in some remunerative occupa- 
tion other than domestic service, temperate, and 
free from any physical infirmity. All of these 
are most wise qualifications for popular repre- 
sentatives, although it would be hard to find a 
man in Andorra meeting the first two require- 
ments, who does not also fulfill the last three. 
Civic duties are taken seriously in the Val- 
ley, and public service is obligatory. No one 
under the age of sixty is allowed to decline an 
office to which his fellow-citizens have elected 
him. Yet all representatives of the people 
and all appointees of the co-princes serve with- 
out remuneration (though their necessary ex- 
penses are paid) with the single exception of 

[ 147 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

the judge of appeals, who, when he is ap- 
pointed by France, receives a salary of $600 a 
year. When the judge has been a Spaniard, 
however, he has heretofore retained a certain 
percentage of the amount involved in the ap- 
peal, as did the French judge until the year 
1891. 

The Andorran officeholders are almost in- 
variably chosen from among the wealthiest and 
ablest citizens; for the feudal coupling of land 
and authority still dominates the political 
ideals of the Valley, Indeed, as a matter of 
practice, there are certain families which, gen- 
eration after generation, provide the law- 
givers of the Republic; while at the other 
extreme are hundreds of landless bachelors 
who are excluded from the franchise. The 
country has a government of the people, for 
the people, but not by all the people. Yet 
if there thus seems to be a kind of Andorran 
aristocracy, it is, in spite of its incidental land- 
holding, an aristocracy of ability and expe- 
rience; and the mass of the population, far 
from being oppressed, are the freest persons 
in the world, with no burdensome civic duties, 
with taxes so small as to be almost negligible 

[148] 



A MINIATURE REPUBLIC 

even in poor Andorra, with free firewood and 
free schools and with easy recourse to the Gen- 
eral Council and even the co-suzerains, if ever 
their rights are in any way threatened. 

It is said that in ancient days the General 
Council consisted of all heads of families, and 
that its meetings were held in a cemetery, 
where presumably the proximity of the re- 
mains of buried patriots induced a sobering 
sense of civic responsibility on the part of the 
living legislators. Now, however, they gather 
in the Palace of the Valley at Easter, Pente- 
cost, St. Andrew's Day, All Saints' Day and 
Christmas, when they open each session with 
solemn mass in the little Chapel of St. Ermen- 
gol, and close it with a banquet in the refec- 
tory, as befits sturdy lawgivers of a good 
conscience. 

While the Council is in session, there flies 
from a window of the Palace the national flag, \ 
with its horizontal stripes of blue, yellow and 
red, and a coronet in the center. This flag, 
however, is one of the newest things in An- 
dorra, for it has been in use less than fifty 
years. It originated after the reforms of 
1866, in the desire of the conservative party to 

[149] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

emphasize the autonomy of the Valley, and 
has not been approved by either of the co- 
suzerains. 

The executive powers of the central govern- 
ment are vested in the president, or syndic pro- 
cur eur general, who is elected by the General 
Council for an indefinite term, and who is as- 
sisted by a second, and sometimes by a third 
syndic. Except when the Council is actually 
in session, the syndic is practically the govern- 
ment. It is he who enforces the decisions of 
the Council, issues or vises passports, and 
grants the "certificates of origin" for Andor- 
ran goods which are to be admitted into France 
free of duty. He also acts as state treasurer 
and, until recently, was likewise both assessor 
and tax collector — a combination of offices in 
which any politician but an honest Andorran 
would have seen rare opportunities for per- 
sonal enrichment. The syndic, of course, pre- 
sides over the deliberations of the General 
Council, which he can call together in extra 
session at any time when urgent matters de- 
mand its attention. But, for that matter, any 
single citizen may demand a meeting of the 
national parliament, provided he is willing to 
bear the modest expense involved. 

[150] 



A MINIATURE REPUBLIC 

The chief duties of the national Council 
are the general oversight of the system of 
roads; the preservation of the forests, all of 
which are communal; the passing of hunting 
and fishing laws; the sale of wood from state 
lands, and the renting of public pastures; the 
inspection of butcher-shops, bakeries, inns, 
cloth mills, and iron mines; the review of the 
deliberations of the parish councils; the ap- 
pointment of all national officers except those 
named by the viguiers ; the auditing of the ac- 
counts of financial officers; and, in extremely 
serious cases, the assistance of the viguiers in 
the conduct of criminal trials. In practice, 
many of the administrative details are, of 
course, left to the lower councils. 

It will be noted that, in the wise exercise of 
some of these forms of practical governmental 
activity, Andorra is generations in advance of 
many larger and wealthier nations. 

Certain acts of the General Council are sub- 
ject to veto by the co-suzerains; but, as a mat- 
ter of fact, this veto power is hardly ever exer- 
cised. 

The revenues are chiefly derived from the 
sale of wood from the public forests, the sum- 
mer rental of the high pastures to shepherds 

[151] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

from Catalonia, a tax on inns and slaughter- 
houses, and a poll-tax, which at present 
amounts to the not very burdensome assess- 
ment of five cents a year. The tribute to 
France and the bishop is raised by means of 
an income tax. Although the total revenues 
are hardly $6,000 a year, there is no public 
debt, and I understand that the Andorran 
government always has a balance in the 
treasury. 

The national expenditures include the small 
tribute paid to the two suzerains, the partial 
support of the state church, which also re- 
ceives aid from the episcopal treasury of 
Urgel, the expenses of the General Council 
and the courts, and of the reception to the 
French viguier, repairs to public buildings, and 
the salary of the Palace janitor. 

The maintenance of the public roads does 
not ordinarily constitute an item in the na- 
tional budget; for every man in the country, 
save only the syndic, is expected to do his 
share of work on them — and stone is to be had 
everywhere for the picking up ! It may be re- 
marked again, however, that there are really 
no roads at all, but only roughly kept mule- 

[152] 



A MINIATURE REPUBLIC 

tracks. 1 I did not see a single carriage in An- 
dorra. Dr. Pla boasts that his hotel is 
recommended by the French Cyclists' Touring 
Club; but the only way a bicycle could reach 
Las Escaldas would be on mule-back. 

The General Council also gives small money 
grants to doctors and pharmacists, provided 
they will settle in an approved locality, and 
charge only a fixed sum for their services. I 
imagine, however, that the Andorrans seldom 
call in a physician. There are only three of 
them in the country; and Dr. Pla, who has 
had to take up hotel keeping in order to sup- 
port his family, tells me that his medical 
services are limited to the occasional pre- 
scription of some very simple remedy. The 
number of lawyers in this modern Utopia is 
also limited to three, and even these have little 
to do. 

The method of policing the Valley is pleas- 
antly indicated in a fragment of a conversation 
which Mr. Spender had with an aged ex- 
syndic. 2 

i The one exception to this statement will be mentioned in 
Chapter XII. 

- Through the High Pyrenees, p. 57. 

[153] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

"And your police ?" we asked — "What of 
them?" 

"We have no police," said Duran lacon- 
ically. 

"Then who looks after your criminals?" we 
asked, with impressions of London streets still 
in our minds. 

"Oh!" he answered, with a shrug of his 
shoulders and a wave of his hand, "the peas- 
ants do that — the peasants." 

"But where is your prison?" we asked. 

"Over there," he said, pointing out of the 
window across the square to a small, dirty 
building of decayed appearance, resembling a 
large poultry-house, its door blocked with 
stones, and its windows broken and cob- 
webbed. 

"Is there anyone there?" we asked. 

"No one," he replied. 

The viguiers are nominally "joint command- 
ers-in-chief of the Andorran army"; but 
there is not any army to command. All able- 
bodied men, however, are supposed to belong 
to the national militia; each parish chooses a 
captain and two lieutenants ; and heads of fam- 
ilies are charged with the duty of keeping 
rifles and ammunition. 

[ 154 1 



A MINIATURE REPUBLIC 

In each parish is a boys' primary school, 
which is taught by the vicar. The girls are 
cared for by Teaching Sisters, who are sent 
by the Bishop of Urgel, and have schools in 
most of the larger villages. Education is free, 
but not compulsory, and the school term is 
short, as during the long summer even the 
small children are kept busy helping to care 
for the cattle on the high pastures. For 
higher education, a small though constantly 
increasing number of sons of wealthy cattle 
owners are sent to the French lycees and the 
secondary schools of Spain; and a very few 
favored ones take advantage of the free schol- 
arships at the French universities. On the 
whole, however, the educational standards of 
the country are low, and illiteracy is very com- 
mon. 

The Andorran postal service consists of one 
facteur who makes a round-trip daily between 
Soldeu and French Porte, and another who 
carries the mail between Andorra la Vella and 
the Spanish frontier. French stamps are used 
on letters going north, and Spanish on those 
sent by the southern route. One French 
writer quaintly remarks that local mail is de- 
livered "with great nonchalance," and if you 

[155] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

send your letters into Andorra by way of 
Spain, they are likely never to arrive at all. 

As for money, both French and Spanish 
coins are in circulation, but the latter are much 
more common. This is evidently due to the 
easier commercial relations with Spain, as well 
as to the depreciated value of the currency of 
that country. 

The trifling duties of an unpaid parliament 
which have been described above seem like 
household cares or the work of some village 
board, rather than the government of a proud 
and independent people. Yet, with all the lit- 
tleness and informality, there goes a mutual 
confidence and respect, an honor for public of- 
fice, and a pride in the honest performance of 
civic duties, which larger republics might well 
envy. 



[156] 



XI 

FEASTING AND GLADNESS 

IT was nearly two o'clock when we ended 
our visit to the Tribunal, and we began to 
feel some of the vast hunger which assails the 
honest Andorran councilors \ so we repaired to 
the inn of a certain Juan Arajol for lunch. 
At first glance the place did not seem very in- 
viting; for the front door led into a dark, 
smoky, half -underground chamber which was 
kitchen, nursery, sewing-room, repair-shop 
and general lounge for the whole Arajol fam- 
ily and its numerous friends. 

The head of the house might have stepped 
right out of the score of "Carmen." Lean 
and lithe, black of hair and swarthy of com- 
plexion, with a broad sash around his waist and 
the tip of his scarlet cap hanging over one 
beetling eyebrow, Juan looked as if he would 
make nothing of robbing a hapless guest at 
midnight, and dropping the corpse into the 
cold depths of the river. But he turned out to 
be a most respectable citizen, an inn-keeper of 
rare honesty, and the proud father of two very 

[157] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

pretty daughters. Leonora is just arriving at 
the bashful age, but little Lula clambered all 
over us and carried on a most interesting con- 
versation in broken Catalan, assisted by per- 
fectly intelligible childish gesticulations. 

We felt quite as much at home here as if we 
had been in an American country village. 
Outside the narrow doorway, the summer sun 
shone dazzlingly upon the stony alleys of the 
smallest, strangest of capitals. So far as we 
knew, our French guide was the only person 
in town to whom we could make ourselves 
clearly understood. Bent old women bustled 
about the great iron caldron, which showed in- 
distinctly in the gloom of the farthest corner 
of the room. The dark, inscrutable landlord 
sat smoking a short black pipe, which threat- 
ened to set on fire the tip of his rakish red 
cap. But the scowling grimness of Juai/s 
countenance lightened when he looked at Ins 
children, and the prattle of irrepressible little 
Lula helped us to understand that, after a#, in 
spite of superficial differences in language and 
dress, these were exactly the same kind 6f peo- 
ple that we were. 

But the dinner — we had not by any means 
forgotten it I It was not served in the great, 

[158] 



FEASTIKG AND GLADNESS 

dark basement, as we had anticipated, but in a 
bright little dining-room on the floor above. 
There, with my traveling companion and our 
guide and mine host and a half-dozen Spanish 
muleteers, I sat down to a dinner — well, I will 
be cautious in statement, for indeed we were 
ravenously hungry — I sat down to a dinner 
which tasted better than any other I had ever 
eaten. 

Before leaving home, I had read gruesome 
accounts of how the peasants of the Pyrenees 
love to flavor their dishes with garlic and cook 
their food in rancid olive oil. Since I have 
returned, the one question which my friends 
never fail to ask is, " Could you get anything 
fit to eat in that forsaken country?" This was 
the menu at Andorra la Vella : 

Head-cheese Tomatoes Onions Garlic 

Puree of chicken and egg 

Stew of potatoes, peas and cabbage 

Corned beef and sausages 

Fricassee of chicken, sausage dressing 

Soft boiled eggs 

Roast chicken 

Egg custard Stewed apricots 

Shelled nuts Assorted cakes 

Claret Champagne 

[159] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Everything was deliriously cooked and of 
a bewildering abundance, and the plates 
were changed for each course. Corned beef 
boiled with sausages is a tasty combination 
which I recommend to American housewives. 
The eggs, which were almost raw, we ate in 
Catalan fashion, chopping off one end of the 
shell, flavoring thickly with salt and pepper, 
and then swallowing at one gulp. As you 
lift it to your mouth, the egg turns over in its 
shell, so that the salted end goes down last, 
ginner, who cannot help wondering what would 
and leaves a pleasant taste in the mouth. But 
this is a somewhat ticklish feat for the be- 
happen if he did not succeed in downing the 
whole egg at the first attempt. 

Time fails me, however, to do justice to the 
details of the banquet. The chickens were fat 
little fellows, hardly larger than "broilers"; but 
there were six or eight of them, so that each 
one of us could choose his favorite tit-bit. I 
am not a judge of champagne; but our guide, 
who is himself a hotel-keeper, said that it was 
excellent, and there were eight quart bottles 
on the table. 

The price of this modest luncheon was forty 
cents! It would have amounted to less if we 

[160] 



FEASTING AND GLADNESS 

had paid for it in depreciated Spanish cur- 
rency. It should be said, however, that this was 
a feast-day, and it certainly seems as though 
the champagne must have been an extra; but 
when I asked Monsieur Not who had paid for 
it, he said that he didn't know anything about 
it, and continued lustily drinking, asking no 
questions for conscience' sake. The charge for 
the wine certainly did not appear in the bill. 
I wish that Senor Arajol would write an 
article on the high cost of living. 

The Catalan drinking-bottle is in general 
use in Andorra. This is a kind of carafe with 
a hollow handle at the top, through which the 
liquid is poured in, and a long, tapering noz- 
zle, with an opening whose diameter is hardly 
larger than that of the lead of a pencil. 
When drinking, the carafe is held a little 
higher than the mouth, and is tipped so that a 
thin stream falls between the slightly parted 
lips. Thus used, it is the most sanitary of 
drinking- vessels, for no mouth ever touches the 
nozzle. It seems the simplest thing in the 
world, to catch the little stream; but one must 
first know the trick of swallowing with the 
mouth open, and the ambitious amateur who 
neglects to continue swallowing, or who shuts 

[161] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

his lips, meets with immediate and spattering 
failure. 

The muleteers at dinner with us were nat- 
urally anxious to enjoy our initiation into this 
national mode of drinking. One of them 
lifted the vessel carelessly and shot a little 
stream between his parted lips, to show what 
an easy matter it was. Then he passed the 
bottle to me, and the Spaniards got ready to 
smile, while Not advised me to tie a napkin 
around my neck. But fortunately I had 
learned the trick long ago from the Syrians, 
and, if anything, I lifted the carafe a little 
higher than my teacher. From then on, I was 
accepted as a man and brother, and had to 
refuse countless offers of champagne. 

When we returned to Las Escaldas late in 
the afternoon and happened to mention in Dr. 
Pla's presence the wonderful meal at Andorra 
la Vella, the good doctor was quite disturbed, 
for his own hotel bears the reputation of being 
the best in the Valley. Consequently Senora 
Pla fairly outdid herself in the effort to rival 
Senora Arajol's culinary achievements. But 
we had to pass by most of the elaborate menu, 
and made a simple repast of brook trout, 
sliced tomatoes and preserved fruit. 

[162] 



FJEASTIISTG AND GLADNESS 

There are other Andorran pleasures, how- 
ever, besides eating and drinking. We were 
fortunate in visiting Las Escaldas during the 
feast of St. James, the patron of the village. 
The little open place in front of our hotel — it 
was barely fifty feet across — was gaily deco- 
rated with festoons of colored paper, which 
swung between evergreen trees set up in the 
earth at the corners of the square. The national 
musical instruments of Andorra are the bag- 
pipe and tambourine ; but that day there was a 
rough platform built in front of the hotel, and 
on this sat a real Spanish brass band, which 
had been brought up all the way from Bar- 
celona for the great occasion. The band con- 
sisted of eight pieces and really played very 
good music, although the fortissimo passages 
were somewhat deafening in the little square, 
surrounded by close, stone-walled buildings. 

Not only had the good people of Las Escal- 
das taken a holiday, but visitors from distant 
parts of the Valley had come to share in the 
festivities, and everyone was in gala attire — 
which meant that, to foreign eyes, they were 
rather less romantic looking than in their 
careless, every-day garments. Some of the 
younger men were dressed from head to foot 

[ 163 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

in neat, well-fitting clothing which would not 
have attracted attention on the streets of New 
York or Paris. Most of them, however, fa- 
vored suits of a durable reddish-brown cor- 
duroy; and pleasant touches of color were 
given by the broad sashes of the men, as well 
as by the bright shawls which the women wore 
over their heads. One strange feature of the 
scene was that the Sunday clothes of the chil- 
dren were cut just like those of their elders. 
It was indescribably funny to see a little tot in 
a dragging skirt and shawl, conversing gravely 
with a Lilliputian "sport" of seven years old, 
who wore long trousers, high-heeled shoes, and 
a straw hat cocked jauntily over one ear. 

The young ladies sat on a bench at one end 
of the square, quietly talking together — not 
giggling — until the young gentlemen stepped 
up to them and, with courteous bows, requested 
the favor of the next number on the program. 
Then they entered upon a modest, stately 
dance, like a slow waltz, except that at certain 
intervals the couples merely marked time for 
a half-dozen measures. The young people 
were quite effectively chaperoned, for on the 
outskirts of the circle of dancers a group of an- 
cient worthies sat smoking their pipes and, I 

[ 164 ] 



FEASTING AND GLADNESS 

suppose, talking of the good old days when they 
were young, while the hotel steps were crowded 
with married women, who knitted and gos- 
siped and minded babies all day long. 

Imagine going among these grave, quiet, 
well-bred people, as some travelers have done, 
with trepidation and a revolver! An Amer- 
ican Sunday School picnic would seem a riot- 
ous affair, in comparison with this Andorran 
festival. During three days of the feast of St. 
James at Las Escaldas, there was not a woman 
who became boisterous or a man drunk; and I 
did not see a bold glance or hear a quarrelsome 
word. There was, indeed, one fist-fight — be- 
tween two little chaps of five or six, who were 
promptly spanked by their respective mothers ! 

In the evening the Spanish band requested 
the privilege of giving a serenade to the dis- 
tinguished American visitors. We could not 
very well be so discourteous as to decline the 
honor thus thrust upon us ; but as the serenade 
consisted of three or four ear-splitting marches 
played in the little dining-room of the hotel, 
we were glad when the time came to send the 
bandsmen off with their drink-money. 

A little later, however, we listened to music 
of a different character; for twenty or thirty 

[165] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

of the young men of Las Escaldas came in to 
sing for us. With Dr. Pla acting as inter- 
preter, I told them that we had traveled all the 
way across the ocean to bring greeting from 
the greatest republic in the world to the small- 
est and oldest of republics. They heard me 
politely, but, being Andorrans, were not visibly 
overwhelmed by the honor done them. Then, 
at my request, they rendered their national an- 
them. They sang well, with the hearty nat- 
uralness of a crowd of college boys, and the 
house fairly shook with the loud "Catalonia! 
Catalonia!" of the refrain. 

In our turn, we sang the "Swanee River" 
and the "Star Spangled Banner," while our 
audience nodded courteous approval of our 
somewhat shaky efforts, and presumably mur- 
mured in Andorran, "Isn't that fine singing!" 

Then we all joined in rousing cheers, 
"Vive VAndorre! Vive VAmerique!" 

The next morning we were in the saddle 
long before daybreak, and had traveled many 
miles northward toward France before the sun 
rose upon the beautiful valley of the Valira. 



[166] 



XII 

THE NEW ROAD 

IN the not far distant future, the ancient 
tranquillity of the Valley may at last be 
disturbed; for, by joint arrangement of the 
Andorran and French governments, the splen- 
didly built highway which now follows the 
eastern boundary of the country, along the 
Ariege and over the Col de Puymorens to the 
Spanish border, is to be tapped by a branch 
road, which will take approximately the route 
which we followed over the Port d'Embalire 
into the Valira valley, and so on down to An- 
dorra la Vella. Less definite plans have also 
been discussed for a continuation of the pro- 
posed highway through the valley to Urgel, 
and thence to the chief Catalan city, Barcelona. 
When completed, this road will be the first to 
cross the eastern two-thirds of the Pyrenees 
range. 

But although a similar project was planned 
by a French syndicate as far back as 1865, and 
the present arrangement with the French gov- 
ernment was made in 1894, and although there 

[167] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

are no insurmountable engineering difficulties 
in the way, the work has thus far progressed, as 
one impatient French writer expresses it, with a 
sage lenteur. 

The new road has been graded over the Port 
d'Embalire as far as the first Andorran ham- 
let, Soldeu. This section, which is about nine 
miles long, lies entirely within Andorra, how- 
ever, and is not yet connected with the French 
highway. France lent the services of engi- 
neers, who made the preliminary surveys and 
drew the plans; but the actual construction 
was all done by the Andorran government. A 
small tax on native cattle provided sufficient 
money for the undertaking, as the necessary 
labor was secured in true feudal fashion by a 
corvee, which required each citizen to do four 
days' work. Eight miles farther down the 
valley, a short, level stretch has been completed 
between Encamp and Las Escaldas, where 
the traveler may philosophize about the futility 
of a fine macadam road-bed in a land which 
has no carriages. Still farther south, the 
Spanish government built about a mile of road, 
and then stopped on account of its usual lack 
of funds. With the completion of these 
easiest and unconnected sections, however, fur- 

[168] 



THE NEW ROAD 



ther work seems to have been indefinitely post- 
poned. We saw nothing being done on the 
road, and no apparent preparations for imme- 
diate construction. Eighteen years after the 
plans were decided upon, wheeled traffic in 
Andorra remains still a dream of the vague 
future. 

Of greater immediate importance is the pro- 
jected railway from Ax-les-Thermes over the 
Pyrenees just east of Andorra, the construc- 
tion of which is now being energetically carried 
forward, although, up to the present time, the 
work has been confined to the difficult portion 
of the route in the rocky gorges between Ax 
and L'Hospitalet. The economic — and per- 
haps political — significance of this new line will 
be understood when it is remembered that 
there is not now a single railway which 
crosses the Pyrenees throughout their entire 
length; so that the only way at present to 
reach Spain from France by rail is to make 
a long detour around one end of the range, 
within sight of the Gulf of Lyons or the Bay 
of Biscay. Although Toulouse and Barce- 
lona, for instance, are but a hundred and sixtv 
miles apart, the railway journey between them 
is longer bv a hundred miles; and the Paris- 

[169] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 



Barcelona express, which runs far eastward by 
way of the Tarascon near Marseilles, travels 




n— -* Propos&d R'w&y 



o •» *o to 



Mil** 



two hundred and fifty-three miles more than 
the actual distance between the two cities. 

With these figures in mind, we are prepared 
to appreciate the probable importance of a 
railway which, except for the loops on the steep 
mountainsides, will follow an almost straight 
line from Toulouse into the heart of the richest 

[170] 



THE NEW ROAD 



and most progressive province in Spain. 
Though heavy freight will doubtless always be 
shipped by the easier grades along the coast, 
the hurried business man, as well as he who 
travels for pleasure, will take the short, beau- 
tiful route across the Pyrenees. 

For Andorra, the completion of this rail- 
way along her eastern border will probably 
mark the most important crisis in her history. 
Then, at last, the wagon-road will surely be 
completed from the railway into the heart of 
the Valley. With adequate transportation fa- 
cilities, the mineral wealth of the Pyrenees 
will be exploited, the power of the mountain 
torrents will be harnessed to the machinery of 
industry, the Andorrans will emerge from 
their poverty and simplicity, and, instead of 
being the least accessible country in western 
Europe, the Republic will lie half-way along 
the most beautiful tourist route between 
France and Spain. 

It is no wonder that the young men of An- 
dorra look forward with eager anticipation to 
this linking of their country with the modern 
world. But the older people, and some of us 
strangers who have come to love the Valley, 
view with regret the approaching end of that 

[171] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

long era during which, in the words of one of 
its historians, Andorra has been the poorest 
of countries, the most backward of nations, the 
freest of republics, whose inhabitants have 
given to the world an inspiring example of 
how little a free people need possess in order 
to believe itself the happiest of peoples. 



[172] 



APPENDIX I 

THE COUNTS OF FOIX 

Bernard Roger 1012-1035 

Who inherited the County from his 
father, Roger of Carcassonne. 

Roger 1 1035-1064 

Pierre 1064-1071 

Roger II 1071-1124 

Roger III 1124-1148 

Roger Bernard 1 1148-1188 

Raymond Roger ...... 1188-1222 

Roger Bernard II 1222-1241 

His first marriage, with Ermesinde 
of Castellbo, brought Andorra 
within the suzerainty of the Counts 
of Foix. 

Roger IV 1241-1265 

Son of Roger Bernard and Er- 
mesinde. 

Roger Bernard III . 1265-1302 

Married Marguerite of Beam. 
His quarrel with the Bishop of 
Urgel was ended by the signing of 
the Concordat of 1278. 
[173] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Gaston 1 1302-1315 

Inherited also Beam, through his 

mother. 

Gaston II 1315-1343 

Gaston III. (Phoebus) 1343-1391 

Dying without legitimate issue, he 

left his estates to Charles VI., who 

granted Foix to a descendant of 

Gaston I. — 
Matthew of Castellbo 1391-1398 

Dying without issue, his lands were 

seized by the husband of his sister 

Isabel — 
Archambaud de Grailly . . . . . . 1398-1412 

Jean de Grailly 1412-1436 

Gaston IV. (Phcebus) 1436-1472 

Married Eleanor, heiress of Na- 
varre. He survived his sons, and 

was succeeded by his grandson — 
Francis Phoebus 1472-1483 

Who, upon the death of his grand- 
mother, succeeded to the throne of 

Navarre. He was followed by the 

husband of his sister Catherine — 

Jean d'Albret 1483-1516 

Henry 1 1516-1555 

Who was Henry II. of Navarre. 

He was succeeded by his daughter's 

husband — 

[174] 



APPENDIX I 



Antoine de Bourbon 1555-1572 

Henry II 1572- 

Who was Henry III. of Navarre, 
and in 1589 became king of France 
as Henry IV., since when the suze- 
rainty over Andorra has been 
vested in the head of the French 
nation. 



[175] 



APPENDIX II 

THE CONCORDAT OF 1278 

Between Count Roger Bernard III. of Foix and Bishop Pedro 

of Urgel 

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas 
for a long time past there have been many and divers 
subjects of dispute, charges and countercharges 
upon many, various and divers matters between the 
noble Lord Roger Bernard, by the grace of God 
Count of Foix and Viscount of Castellbo, and his 
predecessors, on the one hand, and the reverend Lord 
Pedro, 1 by divine compassion Bishop of Urgel, and 
his predecessors, and the Church of Urgel, on the 
other hand, by reason whereof much serious damage 
has resulted on both sides, to wit: the slaughter of 
men, the destruction of castles, the mutilation of men's 
bodies, and many other atrocities and almost unspeak- 
able evils. Now, therefore, by the good offices of 
Lord Jathbert, by the grace of God Bishop of Valen- 
cia, and of the nobles, Master Bonat de Lavayna, 
Canon of Narbonne, deputed by the Supreme Pontiff 
as collector of tithes in the Kingdom of Aragon, Mas- 
ter Raymond de Besaln, Archdeacon of Tarragona, 

i Except in the signature, the Bishop's name is indicated 
throughout simply by the initial letter, P. 

[ 176 ] 



APPENDIX II 



Raymond d'Urg, Isarn de Fajaus, and William Ray- 
mond de Josa, well-disposed friends to both, the afore- 
mentioned parties have reached an amicable adjust- 
ment of all the aforesaid subjects of dispute, charges 
and countercharges, to the satisfaction of both par- 
ties, upon the terms hereinafter set forth. 

First, concerning the Valley or Valleys of Andorra, 
it has been decided and agreed, through the good 
offices of the aforesaid Lord Bishop of Valencia and 
the other nobles, that from this time forth forever, 
the Lord Bishop of Urgel and his successors, in alter- 
nate years, may and can lay a tax upon the men of 
the Valley or Valleys of Andorra, to the extent of 
4,000 Malgorian sous, without hindrance from the 
Count and his successors, so long however, as neither 
he nor his successors exceed the said amount ; and the 
Lord Count of Foix and his successors in the other 
alternate years may lay a tax upon the said men of 
Andorra, according to his pleasure, without hindrance 
from the Bishop and his successors and the Church 
of Urgel, the amount levied by him not being limited. 
And this they may do forever, and thus it may be 
done in alternate years ; and in the present first year, 
the said Count of Foix may levy the tax upon the said 
men of the Valley or Valleys of Andorra. 

Likewise it has been agreed through the good offices 
of the same men, concerning the subject of judicial 
administration and high justice, that the bayles * of 

i See footnote, page 26. 

[177] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

the aforesaid lords, the Bishop and the Count, shall 
always jointly and equally administer high justice 
over the said men of Andorra, to wit: major judg- 
ments, intermediate judgments, and minor judg- 
ments, and all which pertains or should pertain 
to high and middle and low justice; and shall jointly 
take and hold captured criminals. And if any 
cause shall need to be disposed of, the bayles of 
the said lords, jointly and equally, shall dispose 
of such cause, by instituting a court and disposing 
of said cause, even to final judgment, or causing it to 
be disposed of, and may also, acting jointly, impose 
sentence of death. And if it happen that one of 
said bayles be absent from any trial, the one who is 
present may do the aforesaid things, to try or to pun- 
ish ; likewise also, at whatever time the bayle who was 
absent shall return, he shall be consulted by him who 
was present, in order that no prejudice may be suf- 
fered by the lord of the absent bayle, neither any 
precedent nor other observance be broken to the in- 
jury of either of the lords in the aforesaid procedure, 
although one or the other bayle should be frequently 
absent from the trial of such causes, but he shall al- 
ways be admitted when he returns. And if it shall 
happen that by reason of any offense, misdemeanor 
or felony having been committed, any cause shall be 
tried by said bayles, and money shall be collected 
therefrom, or had by the sentence imposed or by any 
other method of settlement, always the Lord Bishop 

[178] 



APPENDIX II 



and his successors shall have one-fourth part of said 
money, and the Lord Count of Foix and his successors 
shall have three- f ourths ; but always such pecuniary 
settlement of causes shall be had, upon the premises, 
by common consent of both bayles themselves, if both 
be present ; but if either be absent, as said above, he 
who is present may conduct the aforementioned pro- 
ceeding, try it, compromise it, or bring it to a con- 
clusion, in the names both of himself and of the absent 
bayle. But always let the lords and their said bayles 
beware, not only present but absent, that by reason 
of their presence or absence, or their conduct of said 
proceedings, no fraud or deceit be practiced, but that 
with good faith and good purpose they institute said 
trials, and conduct, finish or compromise them. 
Moreover let said noble Count of Foix, if he wish, 
have his viguier x in the Valley or Valleys of Andorra, 
as he has been used to do, which viguier shall perform 
and do these things which he has been accustomed to 
do among the men of Andorra, before the Count was 
given jurisdiction over the men of said Valley. More- 
over let the aforementioned division of money be 
made after the expenses of administration have been 
deducted from the total amount of the fines and com- 
promises. In every case, however, all imposts, poll 
taxes, predial tithes, revenue taxes, excise taxes 2 or 

i See footnote, page 26. 

2 Many of the words used in this document to designate the 
various taxes, privileges, and degrees of crime are technical 

[179] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

other taxes which the Bishop of Urgel, the canons and 
Church of Urgel have received or been accustomed to 
receive in the Valley or Valleys of Andorra, except the 
aforesaid, in like manner, let them and their successors 
receive in the future, peaceably and undisturbed, with- 
out any hindrance from said Count or his viguier or 
his bayle, except the Truce of God which the Bishop 
has been accustomed to receive, concerning which let 
it be done as in the case of other crimes. Let the 
same be understood on the part of the Count of Foix 
concerning the things which he has been accustomed 
to receive among the said men of Andorra, except the 
aforesaid, that he may henceforth have and receive 
them freely, and that by this present or any future 
agreement no prejudice whatever may be done to the 
Bishop of Urgel, or to the canons or their successors, 
or to the Count of Foix or his successors concerning 
those matters or in those things which either has here- 
tofore been accustomed to receive in said Valley or 
Valleys or from the men of Andorra; but let each 
receive these peaceably and quietly, without hindrance 
from the other, just as he has been accustomed to do 
in times past, with the exception of the particulars 
hereinbefore set forth. Moreover the renunciation 

terms of continental feudal law, for which it is impossible to 
find an exact equivalent in English. It has seemed wiser, in 
each case, to approximate as closely as possible the meaning of 
the mediaeval Latin by a concrete English expression, rather 
than to destroy the continuity of thought by lengthy para- 
phrases. — Tr. 

[180] 



APPENDIX II 



and remission made to the men of the said Valley by 
the aforesaid Count of his rights of escheat, reversion 
and wedding-night shall remain irrevocable forever. 

Likewise they have ordained that each of the said 
lords shall have the right in perpetuity to make a 
levy of infantry and cavalry among the men of An- 
dorra, except that they shall not have said men for use 
against each other. 

Likewise it has been decided and decreed through 
the intervention of the said friendly intermediaries, 
that the said noble Count of Foix and all his succes- 
sors shall hold in fief, forever, from the Bishop of 
Urgel and his successors, whatever he has and receives 
and may have or receive in the Valley or Valleys or 
among the men of Andorra, and shall hold these for 
the Church of Urgel. Also the said Count and all 
his successors shall hold as fief forever the Valley of 
St. John and the Castle of Ahos, with all their appur- 
tenances, for the Bishop and his successors and the 
Church of Urgel, except the Castle of Thor, which 
shall never be known as a fief; and for the said Val- 
leys of Andorra and St. John, the Count shall now 
also do homage to the said Lord Bishop; and all his 
successors shall be bound to do likewise to the Bishop 
and all his successors, according to the foregoing. 

[Here follow five paragraphs referring to disputed 
rights in the Valleys of Cabaho and St. John.] 

Likewise they have decreed and ordained that, con- 

[181] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

cerning all the above, .public instruments * should be 
made, which shall be confirmed by the Supreme Pon- 
tiff; and that the said Bishop should cause this to 
be done at his expense; which confirmation of the 
Supreme Pontiff shall be complete within four years ; 
and to do this the said Bishop bound himself and the 
Church and its property, under penalty of 50,000 
Malgorian sous, which penalty the said Count shall 
have unless within said time the Lord Pope shall con- 
firm the foregoing; and for this he should give as 
surety to the said Count the most illustrious King 
of Aragon. If, however, a vacancy should occur in 
the Roman Curia, so that there should be no pope, 
this period of vacancy shall be deducted and not com- 
puted as part of said four years. It was moreover 
decreed through the aforesaid friendly intermediaries 
that the Count of Foix shall send to the Roman 
Curia his deputy, who shall diligently seek confir- 
mation of the foregoing, at the same time as the 
deputy of the Bishop of Urgel, and that the Count 
shall himself provide the expenses of his own deputy ; 
nor shall the Count of Foix or his deputy practice any 
fraud ; but that, if he does so, the aforesaid penalty 
put up on the part of the Bishop shall be released. 

[Here follows a short paragraph regarding the dis- 
position of the Castle of Ayguetebia.] 

i Evidently referring to the present formal draft of the 
treaty. 

[182] 



APPENDIX II 



It has likewise been ordained through the said 
friendly intermediaries that the killing and slaying 
of men, whether soldiers or ecclesiastics or villeins, 
and the destruction of castles and houses, heretofore 
practiced by either side or their predecessors, shall 
be straightway stopped on both sides. This peace 
shall be perpetual between the noble Count of Foix 
and his successors and the Bishop and Chapter of 
Urgel and theirs. 

Moreover, we, Pedro, by divine commiseration 
Bishop of Urgel, do hereby give to you noble Roger 
Bernard, Count of Foix and Viscount of Castellbo, 
as surety for the penalty of 50,000 Malgorian sous 
that the Lord Pope will confirm and approve all and 
singular the foregoing within four years, the said 
most excellent Lord Pedro, 1 by the grace of God King 
of Aragon. Which said security we, Pedro, by the 
grace of God King of Aragon, for our self and ours, 
do freely give and concede to you, said Count of Foix 
and yours, as above set forth, without deceit, renounc- 
ing the Rescript of the Emperor Hadrian and all 
fraud; obligating ourselves, we, Lord King, and the 
Bishop of Urgel aforesaid, jointly, to you said Count 
of Foix and yours, and binding all the property of 
ourselves and of each of us and of the Church of 
Urgel, personal and real, in possession or in ex- 
pectancy. 

i This name also is indicated merely by the initial, even in 
the signature. 

[ 183 ] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

We, likewise, Roger Bernard, by the grace of God 
Count of Foix and Viscount of Castellbo, for our- 
selves and all our successors, and we, Pedro, by divine 
commiseration Bishop of Urgel, for ourselves and all 
the Chapter and Diocese of Urgel, both present and 
future, and for all our successors, all and singular 
the foregoing, just as expressed and written above 
and even word by word, singularly repeated, accord- 
ing to the certain knowledge of us and each of us, do 
hereby ratify, commend, approve and confirm, in all 
and through all, promising, each to the other in this 
public instrument, fortified by oath, that the forego- 
ing or any particular thereof we shall not contravene, 
or permit any man or men to contravene, by word, 
deed, or thought, by reason whereof the present agree- 
ment, approved by God and by us, shall be impeded 
or revoked, or may be impeded or revoked, in any 
particular. On the contrary, according to the certain 
knowledge of us and each of us, we hereby pledge to 
have and to hold all and singular the foregoing fixed, 
firm and incorruptible, irrevocably forever. And in 
all and singular the foregoing we hereby renounce, 
with full knowledge, we, the Bishop of Urgel and the 
Count of Foix, the aforesaid, all benefit of law, both 
canon and civil, both divine and human, and all con- 
stitutions and exceptions, both of law and of fact, 
written and not written, competent or to become com- 
petent, to us or to either of us, in any manner, reason 
or way ; swearing, we and each of us, upon the most 

[184] 



APPENDIX II 



holy Four Gospels of God, these things, all and singu- 
lar, firmly to hold and observe, and in no wise to con- 
travene: So help us, and each of us, God and these 
holy Gospels of God, and the cr^oss of God, placed 
in our presence and touched by us. 

We also, Roger Bernard, by the grace of God 
Count of Foix and Viscount of Castellbo, without 
reservation, hereby do homage to you, Lord Pedro, by 
divine commiseration Bishop of Urgel, with mouth 
and hands, according to the Barcelona usage. 

Done this 6th day before the Ides of September, in 
the year of our Lord, 1278. 

(Signed) 

The *J< mark of the noble Lord Roger Bernard, by 
the grace of God Count of Foix and Viscount of Cas- 
tellbo, swearing and doing homage. The *i* mark 
of the Lord Pedro, by the grace of God King of Ara- 
gon, surety of the aforesaid contract, who grants and 
confirms, and acknowledges the granting and confirm- 
ing of these presents. We, Pedro, by the grace of 
God, Bishop of Urgel, swear and subscribe to the fore- 
going. 

John Pelasgius, Sacristan of the Church of Urgel. 

G. de Juverre, Archdeacon of Urgel. 

Ber. Guinardi, Archdeacon of Urgel. 

Benedict, Prior of Urgel. 

P. de Soriguera, Abbot of Urgel. 

James John, Archdeacon of Urgel. 

[185] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Martin Peter, Precentor of Urgel. 

John Dominic, Chaplain of St. Odo. 

The *i* mark of G. de Sorigera, Canon of Urgel. 

Berardus de Guinardi, Canon of Urgel. 

Bernard de Costis, Canon of Urgel. 

Raymond Bert rand, Canon of Urgel. 

The *i* mark of G. de Livia, Canon of Urgel. 

G. de Cervaria, Canon of Urgel. 

R. de Besora, Canon of Urgel. 

James de Onczesio, Canon of Urgel. 

Peter de Fonte, Canon of Urgel, certifying this. 

Bertolomeus John, Canon of Urgel. 

Master Pedro, Canon of Urgel. 

Berengarius de Villamuro, Canon of Urgel. 

The *i* mark of Peter Andree, Canon of Urgel. 

Gaucerandus d'Urg, Canon of Urgel, subscribing. 

Peter de Bellopodio, notary public of Seo de Urgel, 
by order of Arnaldus de Ripellis, Archdeacon of 
Urgel, subscribing and certifying the above. R. de 
Morerio, Canon of Urgel. 

Peter de Bellopodio, Chaplain of St. Nicholay, a 
witness. 

Bertolomeus d'Anurri, cleric, a witness. 

The ►{« mark of William de Pontibus. The *i* 
mark of Poncius de Repellis. The *i* mark of Gal- 
cerandus de Angularia. The ►{< mark of William de 
Meyano. The *i* mark of Peter Paschasii. The *i* 
mark of Berengarius de Vilarone, learned in the law. 
The ►£< mark of the noble Raimundetus de Peralta. 

[186] 



APPENDIX II 



The *i* mark of Arnaldus de Vilarone, inhabitant of 
Celsone. The *i* mark of Ferreronus de Areyn. 
The *i* mark of William de Perexencio. The >J* 
mark of Peter de Torrens, cleric. The ►p mark of 
William Destaras. The ►{< mark of Bernard dez 
Vilarone. The ►£< mark of Romeus de Luparia. The 
Hh mark of Bernard dez Pla de Solsona. The >J< mark 
of Perotonus de Ager. The >J< mark of Yatbertus 
de Barbarano. The *|« mark of Poncius, by the grace 
of God, Prefect of Celsone. 

All the above are witnesses of the confirming, rati- 
fying, swearing and homage of the aforesaid Lord 
Roger Bernard, by the grace of God Count of Foix 
and Viscount of Castellbo, and also of the confirming 
and ratifying and swearing of the aforesaid Lord 
Pedro, by the grace of God Bishop of Urgel. 

The Lord Bishop and the canons named above have, 
with their own hands, subscribed these presents in the 
presence of me, notary, and of the aforesaid witnesses, 
Peter de Bellopodio, Chaplain of St. Nicholay, and 
of Bartelomeo d'Anurri, cleric. 

The Hh mark of the Lord Jathbert, by the grace of 
God Bishop of Valencia. The *J« mark of Raymond 
de Orchan, who, with the said Poncio, Prefect of Cel- 
sone, are witnesses of the confirming and ratifying of 
Lord Pedro, by the grace of God King of Aragon, the 
aforesaid surety, who has confirmed and ratified this, 
the 6th day before the Ides of September, in the year 
above written, 

[187] 



ANDORRA, THE HIDDEN REPUBLIC 

Witness my signature, Arnaldus de Valleluperaria, 
notary public of Ilerdia, who have been present at, 
and have written and acknowledged the foregoing. 



[188] 



INDEX 

Arabic numerals refer to pages, Roman to chapters. 



Abd-er-Rahman, 6. 
Alais, Peace of, 42. 
Albigensian Wars, 23, 41. 
Anclar, Mt., 109, 112. 
Andorra : 

Approaches to, 32, 47, V. 

Area, 77. 

Beauty of, 108. 

Boundaries, 67, 92. 

Coat-of-arms, 31, 112. 

Doctors, 153. 

Dwellings, 85. 

Early documents, 13n, 18. 

Educational system, 139, 155. 

Fertility, 77f, 82f. 

Flag, 149. 

Flowers, 83. 

Frontier, 67. 

Government, IX, X. 

Healthfulness, 86. 

Industries, 83. 

Judicial system, 122f. 

Language, 101. 

Lawyers, 153. 

Legends, 11. 

Militia, 154. 

Minerals, 83. 

Mountains, 68. 

Names, 9, lln, 79. 

Origin of privileges, 9, 16. 

Parishes, 19, 78, 117. 

Police, 153. 

Politics, 140. 

Population, 79f. 

Postal Service, 155. 

Products, 82f. 

Religion, 87, 101. 

Roads, 152, XII. 

Sanitation, 86. 

Settlement of, 6. 



Suffrage, 146, 148. 

Towns, 85. 

Water supply, 85. 
Andorra la Vella, 91, VIII. 

Battle of, 8, 109. 

Capitol, 11, VIII. 

Dinner at, 158f. 
Andorrans, VII. 

Appearance, 99. 

Chastity, 101. 

Conservatism, 102. 

Costumes, 98, 163. 

Honesty, 102. 

Industry, 100. 

Marriage customs, 101. 

Poverty, 100. 

Taciturnity, 95. 

Temperance, 101, 165. 

Thrift, 100. 
Aragon, Kingdom of, 17, 22. 

Pedro III. of, 24f, 183f. 
Arajol, Juan, 157. 
Ariege, Department, 46, 106, 
12 If. 

Dialect, 55. 

Inhabitants, 55. 
Ariege River, 33, 44f, 47, V, 
167. 

Source of, 75. 
Ashton River, 46. 
Attila, 48. 
Ax-les-Thermes, IV, 168. 

Bayles, 26, 123f, 130, 177f. 
Barcelona, 60, 101, 163, 167, 

170. 
Bayonne, 71. 
Beam, 28, 31, 38. 
Bernard Roger of Foix, 37. 



189 



INDEX 



Black Fountain, 73f. 

Peak of, 1, 73. 
Bourdeaux, 6. 
Bourg-Madame, 58. 

Cabanes, Les, 46. 

Cabrera, Viscounts of, 23. 

Caixal, Bishop, 133f. 

Calaf, 32. 

Calvo, General, 80. 

Canillo, 86. 

Carcassonne, 6. 

Castel Maii (Ax), 56. 

Castellbo, 22f. 

Catalan (s), 6, 45. 

Catalonia, 8, 12f, 16, 18f, 24, 

31n, 32, 84. 
Cataracts, 89. 
Cattle raising, 84. 
Certificates of Origin, 106. 
Charlemagne, 7, llf, 19. 
Charles Martel, 6. 
Concordat of 1278, 25f, 176f. 
Consuls, 145. 
Corvee, 168. 
Customs exemptions, 104, 137. 

Dancing at Las Escaldas, 163. 

Ebro River, 13. 
Eleanor of Navarre, 38. 
Embalire, Mt., 75. 

Pass, 75, 77, 167. 

River, 77. 
Encamp, Gorge, 89. 

Village, 91, 168. 
Ermengol, Bishop, 117. 
Ermesinde of Castellbo, 22, 46. 
Escaldas, Las, 92f, 168. 

Faure, Felix, 119. 

Foix, Castle and Town, III. 

Foix, Counts of, 22f, III, App. I. 

Bernard Roger, 37. 

Francis Phoebus, 38. 

Gaston Phoebus, 37, 39n, 4Q 

Gaston IV., 37. 

Raymond Roger, 41. 

Roger Bernard II., 22f, 46. 

Roger Bernard III., 23f, 27, 
29, 38, 41, App. II. 
Foix, Viscount of, 135. 
Font Ne'gre, 73. 
Fontargente Pass, 47. 
France and Andorra, 138f, XII. 
Francis Phoebus of Foix, 38. 



Free Trade, 84. 
French Revolution, 27f. 
Froissart, 39n. 

Gambling Syndicate, 134f. 
Garonne River, 71. 
Gaston Phoebus, 37, 39n, 40. 
Gaston IV. of Foix, 37. 
Gaston VII. of Bears, 38. 
General Council, X. 

Duties, 151. 

Expenditures, 152. 

Foundation of, 30. 

Members, 146. 

Sessions, 149. 
Gibraltar, 3. 
Grazing lands, 84. 

Henry of Navarre, 28. 
House of the Valley, VIII. 
Hospitalet, L', 58, 63f, 136, 169. 

Iron Cabinet, 116. 
Iron mines, 67, 83. 

James, Feast of St., 163f. 
Jathbert, Bishop, 24, 176. 
Jerez, Battle of, 3. 
Julian, Count, 3. 
Jus Aprisionis, 15. 

Liechtenstein, 120. 

Louis le Debonnaire, 8f, llf, 19, 

109. 
Louis XIV., 80. 

Marguerite of B6arn, 38. 
Martin IV., Pope, 25. 
Mas del Dumenje, 109. 
Merens, Gorge, 59. 

Town, 61. 
Meritxell, Chapel of, 87. 
Monaco, 120. 
Montfort, Simon, de, 41. 
Moorish conquest of Spain, I. 
Musical instruments, 163. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 28, 104. 
Napoleon III., 134. 
Narbonne, 6. 

National Assembly, French, 28. 
Navarre, 28, 38. 

Ordino, 78, 82. 



Palace of the Valley, 31, VIII. 



190 



INDEX 



Palomere, la (brook), 67. 
ParSage, Acte de, 25, App. II. 
Parish Councils, 145f. 
Pedro, Bishop, 23f, App. II. 
Pedro III. of Aragon, 24f, 183f. 
Penal servitude, 125. 
Perpignan, 45, 71, 124. 
Philip the Hardy, 41. 
Pla, Francisco, 93, 117. 
Politar, the, 142n. 
Ponce de Vilamur, Bishop, 23, 30. 
Portillon d'06, 71. 
Posidinius, Bishop, 119. 
Proven$al, 45. 
Puymorens, Mt., 65, 67. 

Pass, 58, 60, 73, 167. 
Pyrenees, Range, 68f. 

Passes 70f. 

Railways, 32, 59, 71, 169f. 

Roads, 71, 167. 
Pyrenees Orientales, 45, 106f, 
12 If. 

Quarter, Council of, 146f. 
Quistia (tribute), 27, 121f, 152, 
177. 

Rahonadors, 125. 

Railways, 82, 59, 71, XII. 

Raymond Roger of Foix, 41. 

"Revolution, the," 134. 

Richelieu, 42. 

Roads, 58f, 65f, 71, 88, 91, XII. 

Roderic, King, 4f. 

Rock of Foix, 35. 

Roger Bernard II. of Foix, 22f, 

46. 
Roger Bernard III., 23f, 27, 29, 

38, 41, App. II. 
Roger of Carcassonne, 37. 
Roncesvalles, 13. 
Rossel, Don, 142n. 
Roussillon, 45. 

San Juan, Church of, 87. 

San Julia de Loria, 82, 91, 129. 

San Marino, 120. 

Saragossa, 13. 

Segre River, 6, 32. 



Singing at Las Escaldas, 116. 
Smuggling, 92, 103. 
Soldeu, 80f. 
Soulane, Mt., 65. 
Spain and Andorra, 137f. 
Spanish laborers, 61. 
Spanish March, 13, 15, 17. 
Syndic, 91, 150. 

Tarascon (Ariege), 46. 

(Bouches du Rhone), 170. 
Tarik, Ziad Ibn, 3f. 
Telegraph, 136, 14ln. 
Telephone, 136. 
Tips, 98. 

Tobacco culture, 82. 
Toulouse, 33, 169f. 
Tours, Battle of, 6. 
Tribunal des Corts, 125. 
Tribunal Supirieur d'Andorre. 

124. 
Tribute to co-princes, 27, 121f. 

152 
Trout, 9,' 34, 51, 94, 162. 
Tribunal (Capitol), 31, VIII. 

Udaut, Bishop, 48. 

Urgel, Bishops of, 19, II. 

Caixal y Estrada, 133f. 

Ermengol, 117. 

Pedro, 23f, App. II. 

Ponce de Vilamur, 23, 30. 

Posidinius, 19. 

Recent attitude of, 133f. 

Reception to, 127. 
Urgel, Cathedral, 13n, 18f. 
Urgel, Counts of, 9, 16f, 2 Of. 

Sunifred, 19. 
Urgel, County of, 6, 16, 22. 
Urgel, See of, 19, 31. 
Urgel, Seo de (city), 19, 24, 32, 

101, 119, 124. 
Ussat-les-Bains, 46. 

Valira River, 6, 77f. 
"Valley, the," lln. 
Viguier, 26, 122f, 154, 179. 

Installation of, 126f. 
Visigoths, 3f, 48. 



191 



The 

Real Palestine of To-day 

BY LEWIS GASTON LEARY 

Author of 
Andorra, the Hidden Republic 

\^OU who read this book will know more of 
Palestine and its people than many of those 
who have traveled there. Not only is Dr. Leary 
one of the foremost American authorities on the 
little country, but he is a forceful, graphic, and 
sympathetic writer as well. 

The Chicago Record-Herald calls the work 
* an unforgetable picture of the little land that 
yet looms so large in the history and hearts of 
mankind." 

Missions says it is " one of the most realistic 
and readable descriptions of the Holy Land yet 
given." 

Illustrated from photographs 

Cloth, 5 x 7V2 in. 

Price $1 net; postage IOc. 

McBRIDE, NAST & CO., Publishers 
Union Square New York City 



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